My undercover life story and NBA career have been featured in a number of national newspaper articles – all of which I'm proud to say wound up as award-winners – as well as television segments on HBO, ESPN and ABC.  Over the years, so many people have said to me, “You should write a book."
Now I have – entitled Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob, with Dave Scheiber and foreword by Hall of Famer Bill Walton.
This story will take you through my formative years, my entry into law enforcement and selection to an undercover assignment that changed the Mob and, in the process, changed me. You will read about the emotional carnage I endured in the aftermath of a landmark investigation called Project Alpha; how the constant danger I faced for nearly three years shaped the person I would become; how Bob Delaney, a young New Jersey State Trooper, was secretly transformed into trucking company president and Mob "earner" Bobby Covert.
I know – it's a catchy name for an undercover agent but there was no joke intended. "Covert Operations" was not a term widely used in the mid-1970s .The truth is, my undercover name was taken from  a real person; Robert Allen Covert, who died at birth in 1948 and came back to life through me in 1975.
I've been humbled by the outpouring of responses we've received from folks reading the galley. Bob Ley, one of ESPN's founding anchors, said he “devoured the book" in two days and called it "powerful." A former New Jersey State Trooper, Bob Ferguson, told me he couldn't put the book down and finished reading it in one sitting. Hall of Fame basketball coach Hubie Brown shared with me that he read Covert  in two connecting flights across the country and labeled it “terrific.” 
The subculture of Organized Crime, La Cosa Nostra, the Mob or whatever name you want to give it, is an alluring one. These are the criminals Americans love to hate. I lived in that subculture and understand it. Covert will take you inside the Mob through my eyes and as Bill Walton said in the foreword, it is ”one heck of a journey.” My therapy in finding a way back to mainstream life was the game of my youth – basketball. It gave me a peace that I had lost when I was living the Covert life. Basketball gave me a new profession as well, one that I've had for the past twenty-plus years as an NBA Referee.
       It has been exciting, emotional, exhausting and fun writing this book. I look forward to sharing my unique life story – as both Delaney and Covert – with you.
      I coined a phrase years ago. Some people go through experiences, while other people grow through experiences.   I hope Covert does that for you.   I know it did for me.

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