Sidelines

Sidelines is an insider’s look at the fascinating world of high-school football, and, beyond that, it is also about the death and rebirth of the American community. Stuart Albright uses football to explore our nation’s complicated history of race and public education and to explain why some communities continue to thrive while others are slowly dying away. Sidelines tells the story of nine very different communities across North Carolina, from deep in the Appalachian Mountains where a team of Cherokee Indians carry the hopes of an entire tribe on its shoulders, to military outposts where the War in Iraq dominates every aspect of daily life. We meet resilient coaches in urban schools on the brink of state take-overs and men who lived through segregation, fire bombings, and shattered dreams. Sidelines profiles ordinary coaches and community leaders who do extraordinary things.