Kent Babb – författare

A “gripping” account of a New Orleans high school football team fighting to win on the field—and survive on the streets (Lars Anderson, New York Times–bestselling author of A Season in the Sun).On the west bank of the Mississippi lies the New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers. Short on hope but big on dreams, its mostly poor and marginalized residents find joy on Friday nights when the Cougars of Edna Karr High School take the field. For years, this football program has brought glory to Algiers, winning three consecutive state championships and sending dozens of young men to college on football scholarships.Although he is preparing for a fourth title, head coach Brice Brown is focused on something else: keeping his players alive. An epidemic of gun violence plagues New Orleans and its surrounding communities and has claimed many innocent lives, including Brown’s former star quarterback, Tollette “Tonka” George, shot near a local gas station.Award-winning sports journalist Kent Babb follows the Cougars through the 2019 season as Brown and his team—perhaps the scrappiest and most rebellious group in the program’s history—vie to again succeed on and off the field. Sure to become a classic of sports journalism, Across the River is a necessary investigation into the serious realities of young athletes in struggling neighborhoods: gentrification, eviction, mental health issues, the drug trade, and gun violence. It offers a rich, unflinching portrait of a coach, his players, and the West Bank, a community where it’s difficult—but not impossible—to rise above the chaos, discover purpose, and find a way out.“A penetrating, wide-screen story of what it means to mentor under the toughest of circumstances.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“Masterful . . . equal parts heartbreaking and life-affirming.” —Jeff Pearlman, New York Times–bestselling author of Three-Ring Circus“A moving and evocative portrait of football and life.” —Publishers Weekly

Shortlisted for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing “A searingly honest and intimate portrait of a captivating icon.” —Baxter Holmes, ESPN NBA reporter Through extensive research and interviews with those closest to Iverson, acclaimed Washington Post sportswriter Kent Babb gets behind the familiar, sanitized, and heroic version of the hard-changing, hard-partying athlete who played every game as if it were his last.Former NBA superstar Allen Iverson was once one of America’s most famous athletes: a trendsetter who transcended race, celebrity, and pop culture, and emerged from a troubled past to become one of the most successful and highly compensated athletes in the world. Now, his life and career come vividly to light in this “searingly honest” (Baxter Holmes) biography. Babb brings to life a private, loyal, and often generous Allen Iverson who rarely made the headlines, revealing the back story behind some of Iverson’s most memorable moments, such as his infamous “Practice” rant, delving even deeper to discover where Iverson’s demons lurked. He drank too much, stayed out too late, spent more money than most people could spend in a dozen lifetimes—blowing more than $150 million of his NBA earnings alone. His then wife Tawanna, seen often as the mild-mannered woman who tamed the bad boy, tried to keep her husband and family on the rails. But, as so many others learned on basketball courts, she was no match for the force of nature that was Iverson. Jealousy, meanness, and relentless eventually wore down even his biggest fans, teammates, and, eventually, even his most formidable opponent.

Presidential candidates are a breed apart, often propelled by traits that have shaped their careers and have deep roots in personal histories. Often their greatest strength can turn at supernova speed into their greatest weakness. The exact qualities that set them apart from the field trip them up eventually over the long haul of a presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton’s won’t-back-down resolve is the quality that could make her America’s first female president if it doesn’t sabotage her first. She may have gotten her first campaign for the Democratic nomination wrong, but now she is doggedly determined to get it right. But that past campaign and her controversial years as first lady, while leaving her with more experience with the nuts and bolts of being president, have also left a trail of ethical questions that provide her challengers ample ammunition on the trail. In this series of eBooks, The Washington Post is exploring in-depth all these key characteristics of the leading presidential contenders, the very characteristics that could help make one of them the country’s next commander in chief—or forever sink their presidential ambitions.