2024 the best american football player in the world review
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(as of Dec 10, 2024 19:00:23 UTC - Details)
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.
In Across the River, award-winning sports journalist Kent Babb follows the Karr football team through its 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. What is sure to be a classic work 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 and 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.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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Reviewer: Joseph Thomas
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: a great book by an up and coming storyteller
Review: I never thought I would love a book on football, let alone high school football. I loved this book. This is a book about much more than football. Kent Babb brings the story to life. Real life. New Orleans is like no other place on earth, whether you are in the French Quarter, or the inner city neighborhoods that Kent Babb describes. His writing takes us to the places, and the journeys of the coaches and the players of Karr High School. The reader gains a new understanding of the challenges, not just on the football field, but on the streets. Every football program, on the high school level or college level, would rejoice in the dedication of the Karr High School coaches who dedicate their lives to creating opportunity for the players. Any school in America should be so lucky. Wow, just wow.Read this book. It became a page turner that I couldn't put down. Kent Babb is the new generation of the nonfiction "novel" writer. In the tradition of Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air), Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat), and Ben Mezrich (Bringing Down the House), Kent Babb is creating his own space in sports storytelling.I am already looking forward to the next story from Kent Babb. ( and . . . If you haven't read it already, "Not a Game" is a worthy read also, Kent Babb's book on pro Basketball legend Allen Iverson)Read this book "Across the River" by Kent Babb. You will be glad you did.
Reviewer: Kindle Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Incredible Story
Review: A football book less about football than how a city, a man, his assistants and 100 kids fight every day to survive in a world that seemed to have no interest in them doing so. The intersection of race, education, class. poverty, and violence in a city most of us seem to know only for Marco Gras and JazzFest. One of the best books Iâve ever read. Thereâs no way to read this book and not wonder why, in the richest country in the history of the world, we let an entire generation of kids in certain parts of our cities and communities and our country live like this. Reporting is top notch. The writing is excellent. This book is a classic.
Reviewer: Michael Novotny
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Best book of the year
Review: Not much else to say other than this is the best book I've read all year. The style of writing is captivating and the story that Babb tells is incredibly interesting, exposing a sort of under belly that many people do not see. Books are supposed to take you places, and I really felt like I was alongside the characters here. Even if you aren't a sports or football fan, you will enjoy this book.
Reviewer: Clarke E. Cochran
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Gives Us the Real
Review: Wonderful, honest look at New Orleans and Black high school football players at Karr. Full of darkness and light; despair and hope. If you really want to go deep into the challenges of African American youth and the men who work with them, this is the book for you.
Reviewer: stacy
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Move over Friday Night Lights!
Review: Despite being in one of the nations impoverished and crime ridden areas , Coach Brown excels at winning games and mentoring his athletes. I devoured this book . I was inspired by the challenge of everyday life in the intercity for the staff and the athletes. Some of the greatest victoryâs are far from the shadows of the goalposts. This book is one of the best Iâve read about prep football .
Reviewer: LaShanda
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An Authentic & Fascinating Book That Transcends Football
Review: Kent Babb does an amazing job telling the story of the Karr Football program. These book shows how the lives of the those football players are interconnected on some many levels. While it is a raw look into the world of the West Bank in New Orleans, the mentorship & compassion from Coach Brice Brown is awesome. Brown has made it his lifeâs mission to save as many young lives as he can. Brown is both a friend & mentor to these young men. He wants them to succeed & helps giving them the necessary tools to succeed.
Reviewer: Coach TF
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Life enhancing book
Review: Kent Babb has written the most important, poignant, and can't put it down book about sports and life that's been written in the last 50 years. It reads like a novel. I was mesmerized in suspense waiting for last minute, last second surprises. I thought I was watching a movie but yet I was reading on my back porch for two straight days unable to do anything else. As a high school and college football coach for the last 40 years, I wish I could tell such an important story in the gripping dramatic scenarios that Babb demonstrated. He was a mixture of the brutal honesty of Cheryl Strayed's Wild and a John Grisham classic novel. I want to meet Coach Brown, Joe, Omari, and Keyoke. This book should be required reading for coaches across America. Coach Brown is an American hero. Read this book. It will change your life for the better!
Reviewer: shay
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Hard to find anything inspiring in this book
Customers say
Customers find the book great, riveting, and well-researched. They also praise the writing style as well-written and like a novel. Readers appreciate the great storytelling and masterful job of capturing all the nuance.
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