This is not a story about football, but about what football can mean.' - MICHAEL ROSENBERG, senior writer, Sports Illustrated 'This is the story the country needs to read-raw, expertly told, stripped of political agendas and preconceived notions. an equal parts heartbreaking and life-affirming look at a city, a school, and a football team whose players and coaches spend as much time fighting for survival as they do grid triumph.” - JEFF PEARLMAN, New York Times bestselling author of Three-Ring Circus “This spectacular book carefully fuses voice and tone to transport the reader into a world few can imagine and transforms the tales of disparate individuals into a narrative that is both touching and tragic.” - DeMAURICE SMITH, executive director, NFL Players Association 'A penetrating, wide-screen story of what it means to mentor under the toughest of circumstances.' - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) This book is so important.” - PETER KING, NBC Sports “Babb takes us to a place most of us would never go, telling us a story we’d never know. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.Īlthough he is preparing for a fourth title, head coach Brice Brown is focused on something else: keeping his players alive.

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. On the west bank of the Mississippi lies the New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers.

Across the river kent babb