Glen Rice Calls Sarah Palin a 'Sweetheart' After Alleged Tryst

Glen Rice thought Sarah Palin was a sweetheart and respectful, according to a new book that alleges the former basketball player and the former Alaska Governor had a one-time fling.

Allegations that Rice and Palin hooked up, according to Joe McGinniss' The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, set the Internet on fire on Wednesday. The book is set to hit the markets on Sept. 20.

News outlets around the world couldn't resist reporting on the salacious rumor between the former Michigan basketball standout and John McCain's vice presidential selection.

The initial story came out of a National Enquirer report about the book that claimed the two had a one-time relationship in 1987 when Rice was a junior at Michigan playing in a college basketball tournament in Alaska. At the time, Palin was known as Sarah Heath and was a sports reporter for an Anchorage television station.

The report claimed that Palin had a fetish for black men and hauled Rice down, but The New York Times' book review makes the encounter out to be a bit classier than the Enquirer.

In Janet Maslin's review for the Times, she wrote While Mr. Rice avoids specifics and uses the words respectful and a sweetheart, Mr. McGinniss eggs him on with the kind of flagrantly leading question he seems to have habitually asked. In Mr. Rice's case: So you never had the feeling she felt bad about having sex with a black guy?

Rice refused to comment on the situation when reporters reached him at his Florida home on Wednesday, but he did allegedly confirm the relationship to McGinniss in the book. Another report stated that Rice and Palin used to talk to each other over the phone, even though Palin was apparently seeing her then-boyfriend Todd Palin at the time and would marry him nine months later.

Palin hasn't publicly commented on the story, though her husband released a statement decrying the book through her Sarah PAC Facebook page.

This is a man who has been relentlessly stalking my family to the point of moving in right next door to us to harass us and spy on us to satisfy his creepy obsession with my wife, Todd Palin said in the statement.

His book is full of disgusting lies, innuendo, and smears, Todd Palin stated. Even the New York Times called this book 'dated, petty,' and that it 'chases caustic, unsubstantiated gossip.'

After the alleged tryst, Rice would go on to be drafted No. 4 overall by the Miami Heat in the 1989 draft. He would go on to play 15 years in the NBA and in addition to the Heat; he played for the Charlotte Hornets, the Los Angeles Laker, the New York Knicks, the Houston Rockets, and the Los Angeles Clippers.

Rice finished his career as a three-time all-star, an NBA champion in 2000, and a reputation for having one of the smoothest jump shots in the NBA.

Palin, of course, would go on to become the Governor of Alaska, a Vice President nominee, and one of the most talked about political figures in the country. She currently works as a Fox News commentator, while allegedly mulling a presidential run in 2012.