#76: Kent Babb — Sports Writer for The Washington Post and Acclaimed Author of “Across the River: Life, Death, and Football in an American City”

Football is the American passion, but in many cases, it’s more than just a sport: it’s literally life or death.

Acclaimed sports writer Kent Babb witnessed how football and the great coaches that emerge from the sport, help save lives in some of the most impoverished communities across the country.

Kent has been a longstanding sports writer for The Washington Post and his work was included three times in The Best American Sports Writing Anthology and was selected in the inaugural edition of The Year's Best Sports Writing. His books include “Not A Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson,” and “Across the River: Life, Death, and Football in an American City.”

In the book, Kent recounts his year spent with the Edna Karr High Cougars in the New Orleans Neighborhood of Algiers. Led by the larger-than-life Coach Brice Brown chasing his fourth consecutive title, Coach Brown is focused on something else, giving his kids opportunity, keeping them in school, and keeping them alive. Amidst an epidemic of gun violence, broken homes, and severe poverty Coach Brown often finds himself pushed to his own limits, doing his best to keep his community together.

Kent chronicles the euphoric highs and the devastating lows throughout a football season that may seem one-of-a-kind, but unfortunately is far too common across America. And, not every high school like Edna Karr has a Coach Brice Brown, who Kent calls “the greatest manager of human talent ever.”

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