Wil Haygood is currently visiting distinguished professor in the department of media, journalism, and film at Miami University, Ohio. For nearly three decades he was a journalist, serving as a national and foreign correspondent at The Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and then at The Washington Post. He is the author of The Butler: A Witness to History; Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America; Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson; In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr.; Two on the River; King of the Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.; and The Haygoods of Columbus: A Family Memoir. The Butler was later adapted into the critically acclaimed film directed by Lee Daniels, starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey. Haygood has received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and the 2017 Patrick Henry Fellowship Literary Award for his research for Tigerland. He lives in Washington, D.C.
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
A Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist
Ohioana Award Winner
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence
A Booklist Editors’ Choice Book of the Year
A Hooks National Book Award Finalist
A Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominee
“A haunting, unforgettable book.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Dramatic, memorable, triumphant and heartbreaking. . . . Tigerland
is about more than sports. Sports provides a plot line and
characters for a conversation about race in America.” —Minneapolis
Star Tribune
“Highly readable. . . . [Haygood] brings meticulous reporting and
vivid writing to this largely forgotten story.” —The Washington
Post
“Factoids coalesce to produce a vivid sense of the community’s deep
identification with its sports team.” —The New Yorker
“An uplifting story. . . . [Filled with] rich detail about the city
and the school. . . . [Haygood’s] forays into the minutiae of life
in Columbus give the book depth and texture.” —The New York Times
Book Review
“[Tigerland] cries out for a movie adaptation. . . . Haygood offers
a vivid sense of the African-American community of East
Columbus—the parents, pastors and local businessmen who cheered the
Tigers on to victory.” —Newsday
“Dynamic, multidimensional, and heart-revving. . . . As in all his
avidly read books, Haygood sets the stories of fascinating
individuals within the context of freshly reclaimed and vigorously
recounted African American history as he masterfully brings a high
school and its community to life. This laugh-and-cry tale of
rollicking and wrenching drama . . . is electric with tension and
conviction, and incandescent with unity and hope.” —Booklist
(starred review)
“The blood beats in Haygood’s latest book. . . . It is well-told
history. It lends to a better understanding of who we are and where
we live.” —Michael Arace, The Columbus Dispatch
“Haygood executes a series of historical fadeaway jump shots,
taking us back for extended interludes with the likes of Rev. King,
Jackie Robinson, federal Judge Bobby Duncan . . . and other civil
rights catalysts.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“[Haygood] has gifted the reading public with a book about a
defining moment in America. . . . [Tigerland] is in keeping with
Haygood’s style of well-written prose, allowing the characters to
speak for themselves, and placing the reader as a participant in
the book rather than an observer.” —Decatur Daily
“An engrossing tale of one shining moment in dark times. . . .
Haygood dramatically renders the heady excitement of each game, the
tense moments of a close contest, and the
exuberant—tear-jerking—wins.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“In the supremely talented hands of Haygood, the Tigers of an
all-black Columbus, Ohio, school prove to be an ideal way of
understanding [a] fraught time.” —The National Book Review
“Haygood’s look at the socially turbulent atmosphere [of 1968-69],
told from the perspective of a black man coming of age at the time,
is nationally relevant.” —Nancy Gilson, The Columbus Dispatch
“[An] intense sports saga. . . . Haygood is a passionate
storyteller as he expertly captures this period of civil unrest”
—Publishers Weekly
“With Tigerland, Haygood is shining a light on [a] story long in
the shadows: teenage athletes who brought unity to their community
through the power of sports.” —Toledo Blade
“Inspiring. . . . Haygood tells the story of an amazing group.”
—CBC
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