Through the banks of the red cedar My father and the team that changed the game

Documentary filmmaker Washington debuts with an immensely moving tribute to her father, former Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Gene Washington. She notes that, as a young girl growing up in Minneapolis's suburbs, "football and the backdrop of sweeping civil rights legislation were the vehicles that made it possible for my sisters and I to live an integrated life of access and opportunity." She pins her fortune particularly to her father's sports career, which began in his teens in the Jim Crow South and took off after he earned a scholarship in 1963 to play for Michigan State, one of the nation's first integrated college football teams, along with other Black recruits, including his close friend, defensive lineman Bubba Smith. By the time he made history as a first-round draft pick for the Vikings in 1967, Gene had "earned more medals... and championships," Washington writes, "than I could ever conceive of acquiring." Though his career on the field ended before she was born, Washington passionately reflects on how he changed the game--as a Black pioneer whose fight for players' rights in the 1970s paved the way for future athletes to be compensated fairly--and his legacy informed her own mission "to bring stories of diversity forward" with her films, including the feature-length documentary that inspired this book. Readers will be enthralled and heartened by this unique look at the way sports can influence society. (Jan.)

A documentary filmmaker transforms the death of a football star and actor into the opportunity to delve into her father's storied past. When legendary defensive lineman Bubba Smith died in 2011, Washington felt compelled to know more about her father, Gene, one of Smith's childhood friends. The two had played in an all-Black league in Texas, earned sports scholarships to Michigan State, and went on to play professionally. But it was not until Washington began researching them for a documentary film that she realized just how remarkable their achievements were. MSU had recruited both men in the early 1960s to play for legendary football coach Duffy Daugherty. His visionary work creating an athletic pipeline from the still-segregated South to the more integrated North was considered an "experiment," which made the pressure to succeed intense for all his African American players. National turmoil over racial issues led to racist "gentlemen's agreements" with Southern colleges that forced Daugherty to bench his Black players during games. Nevertheless, Gene, Bubba, and their teammates transformed the Spartan football team into a national power and became sought-after recruits for predominantly White pro football teams. Washington's depiction of how Smith and her father's pioneering roles in sports helped her appreciate her own "freedom of thought and movement" in the post--civil rights era world is poignant. "For better or worse," she writes, "I am their shouts to heaven, the rage and sorrow they left at their altars, and every rumble of hope in the deepest hollow of their drums." However, the author's enthusiastic desire to interweave other stories, related to, for example, the history of Blacks in American football, the civil rights movement, her own life, and the lives of other players, too often disrupts the main narrative. The book should appeal to college football enthusiasts, especially those interested in how racial issues impacted the sport during the 20th century. A warm, fondly remembered, yet flawed memoir. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.