Vanderbilt students walking out of class today, soon to walk down to state capitol to meet other area college students to protest gun violence.
#StudentsDemandAction
@StudentsDemand
Let me get this straight: TN GOP favors schools hitting kids (blocked ban on corporal punishment) & appoints ammo dealer (who sold bullets to teens who commit mass murder) to TN board of ed - but thinks school librarians are dangerous & seeks ways to criminalize them (1/5)
The world lost one of its true gentlemen today. My friend and mentor has passed away. Rest In Peace, Perry Wallace. Your influence will live on in so many of us who admired you.
50 years ago today, Perry Wallace walked into Vanderbilt’s Kirkland Hall & spoke to the university’s Human Relations Committee, a group of 9 white administrators convened by Chancellor Alexander Heard. It was one of the most courageous speeches in American sports history (1/23)
I was on the field after Vanderbilt beat Missouri. Missouri players were salty. One yelled towards the Vandy players that they might have won, but “you still go here! You still go to Vanderbilt!” Missouri’s not a bad school, but… The Vandy players looked at him like WTF?
Perry Wallace's pioneering legacy at Vanderbilt continues with hiring of Jerry Stackhouse: Vandy now the only Power 5 school (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12, SEC) with African American AD, head men's basketball coach and head football coach
My favorite part of Jerry Stackhouse's 1st day as Vandy men's basketball coach came when he stopped to admire the Perry Wallace portrait @ Kirkland Hall. Perry used to say there's a line that connects generations & he would've been proud to see VU w/ black AD, 🏈 coach & 🏀 coach
@TheTNHoller
Who are the prominent, and even not so prominent, members of his congregation? I'd like to know what businesses they run, what classrooms they teach, what offices they hold, etc.
The giddy racism of the
@OleMiss
frat boys reminds me of how Perry Wallace described the environment he encountered as the 1st Black🏀player to play in Oxford. This was 1968, a year after UM canceled both of its freshman-team games vs Vandy rather than play against Perry
A beautiful sight on the Vanderbilt campus on this cold, rainy morning: Nashville Public Works placing the PERRY WALLACE WAY signs up on 25th Ave. Official dedication ceremony 3p Saturday. 50 years ago, Wallace graduated from VU after desegregating SEC🏀
Students and families from St Bernard Academy turn out in massive numbers to join the human chain for gun safety stretching miles from Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital to the TN state Capitol in Nashville.
A shoutout to Bob Dudley Smith, who at 91 years old and battling cancer drove to the Vanderbilt ticket office today to renew his men's and women's basketball season tickets. Bob Dudley was a member of the first Vanderbilt team to win an SEC tournament title in 1951.
#VandyUnited
I read this story on the
@Brewers
logo today & it made me tear up. I had no idea the artist who created it committed suicide.That logo connects my to my youth, to my dad, to my grandfather, to Wisconsin, to the True Blue Brew Crew. Indulge me in a thread
⚡️JUST NOW: “BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS!!!”
Chaos erupts in the Tennessee House as Republicans pass the
@RyanWilliamsTN
arming teachers bill against the will of the people, with hundreds of students and parents looking on.
Here’s what Howard Cosell had to say in support of Smith/Carlos protest in Mexico City 50 years ago. Change the names, his commentary is just as relevant today
Sharing wisdom on the topic of reconciliation from late mentors David Williams & Perry Wallace in today's
@latimes
: Why have the Dodgers been so slow to honor Glenn Burke, MLB's first openly gay player?
(
@PhilomelBooks
,
@PenguinClass
@PenguinTeen
)
Today would have been the 70th birthday of the late Glenn Burke, 1st openly gay
@MLB
player & inventor of the high-five. When I think of birthdays I think of childhood. Here are some of my favorite stories about young Glenn, who grew up in Berkeley & Oakland🧵(1/9)
FL's "Don't Say Gay" law is terrible, but a bill in my state of TN is worse. HB800 bans books in schools that "promote, normalize, support or address LGBT issues or lifestyles" at any grade level. I don't think it should be illegal to read about anyone, even a⚾️ player (1/2)
Just recorded a podcast with some guys from Canada. At the end of the interview, one says, "I have one Nashville story for you." He & his girlfriend drove around the US one summer, "looking for the most pretentious coffee shop in America. We found it in East Nashville." ☕️🤣
As we mourn the loss of an American hero, let's not forget what an American fraud had to say about him 3 years ago. Could there be more polar-opposite human beings?
My son and I are driving to Arkansas tomorrow morning to pick up this shelter dog. Any advice for welcoming a new dog into the family? [A first for our 11 and 8 y.o. kids] 🐶🦴
Not that truth matters to those spreading lies of an “insurrection” at the TN capitol, but everyone who entered went through a very orderly security process like at an airport. I took a picture at the time because of the irony/hypocrisy of it all — NRA-loving R’s afraid of guns?
Apparently at my kids’ school today in Nashville there was an info session for summer flag football for 4th grade boys. Girls in class MAD they were not invited & want to start a petition - or their own team. They watched
@SarahFuller_27
& know they should be able to play, too!
On Feb. 24, 1970, holding his newborn son for the first time,
@DavidMaraniss
said, "Someday my boy will inherit his maternal grandfather's hairline, and I will interview him on a podcast about writing nonfiction books about sports." That day has come.
Editorial: Forty years and six governors later, Gov. Bill Lee was able to relocate the bust of former Confederate general, slave trader and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest's bust from the State Capitol.
My mom just watched the documentary on Mr Rogers tonight and wrote to apologize because 40 something years ago I liked the show as a kid and she didn’t.
So this is what it's all about! After seeing the production of STRONG INSIDE at Nashville Children's Theatre, 5th graders at one local school were asked by their teachers how they would make a difference in the world. Here's what they said. (Perry Wallace continues to inspire!)
Well, I guess the good thing about coming back to work at the same place you worked 25 years ago is when someone asks, “What did you look like with hair,” you just walk down the hall & get a 1995-96 🏀 media guide and show them. Half a lifetime ago!
The silence of the institutions with the biggest platforms in this state is deafening. So is the noise from students, teachers, parents, and other everyday people.
What is happening in Tennessee today is truly frightening. Where are Tennessee’s business leaders? Where are the GOP leaders and voters who believe in the right to dissent and in our democracy? Where are the veteran’s groups who put their lives on the line to protect
Doesn't identify the behavior. Doesn't hold his own fans accountable. Doesn't express concern for the targets of the slurs. Asks that we all not get distracted by racism. Lame apology.
When a box of your new book arrives in the mail and you get to see it for the first time … and your houseguest is polite enough not to say, “well MY new book is
#2
on the NYT bestseller list.” 😂📚👨👦
"I'd like to know where the hell some of it's coming from" - Lindsey Graham, at Supreme Court hearing, after opponent Jaime Harrison smashed Senate fundraising records taking in $57 million in the third quarter of 2020
Sarah Fuller made history today, and what impressed me most was a similarity I noticed between her approach to the moment and that of Perry Wallace, another Vanderbilt pioneer. (1/4)
I vividly remember sitting in Rand Hall 31 years ago to interview then-Vanderbilt freshman linebacker Shelton Quarles, who was so clearly already a team leader and incredibly mature guy. Now he's headed to
#SuperBowl
as the
@Buccaneers
director of football operations. Congrats!
Like a lot of people, my favorite part of the
#MLB
@AllStarGame
as a kid was watching the player intros and seeing all the different colorful uniforms and caps.
@MLB
has totally ruined a good thing
Sports Illustrated lists the 'ONLY 4 female athletic directors at Power 5 schools' in its new roundup of powerful women in sports. SI, allow me to introduce you to Candice Lee, Athletic Director at Vanderbilt SINCE FEBRUARY, & first Black woman AD in SEC history. Don't erase her!
My mom started a beach cleanup in Texas 30 years ago. Today one million people around the world participated in what has grown to become the International Coastal Cleanup. She's not on Twitter, but proud of Linda Maraniss and her concern for our planet!
What a pleasure to share a table with the inspirational Rep Justin Jones (Tennessee Three), legendary Dr Learotha Williams, brilliant Jonathan Eig and more of Jonathan’s fascinating friends celebrating his great new MLK bio after his talk at Parnassus Books in Nashville.
Regarding Thom Brennaman’s slur directed at LGBTQ people during the
@Reds
broadcast yesterday. I have a book coming out in March on Glenn Burke, the first openly gay Major League player. Glenn heard the same word from fans of his own team when he played in Oakland, (1/7)
RIP CM Newton. A great man who changed college sports & race relations in the South for the better & was beloved by fans at Transylvania, Alabama, Vanderbilt & Kentucky, all of whom considered him one of their own. He also was a key figure w USA Basketball & NCAA basketball cmte
Speaking of Lamar Alexander & cowardly acts: as a Vanderbilt student in '62, he wrote of the university's cowardice for not integrating. Where's his courage now? Glad VU will soon honor a different alum, who always spoke truth to power, Perry Wallace, by naming a street after him
Today, Feb. 19, would have been Perry Wallace's 74th birthday. I'm biased, but I think that there's a convincing argument that in desegregating the SEC, Perry took on the hardest pioneering assignment in all of American sports. (1/16)
Bored moms for liberty have arrived at TN house chamber for hearing on banning books, mocking the way Harris & Pelosi looked at SOU. I asked if they had more of a problem with them than MTG and Boebert behavior & they said they didn’t know what I was talking about.
Last night, the Nashville Metro Council passed an ordinance that will rename a stretch of 25th Ave. South that passes through the Vanderbilt campus “Perry Wallace Way.”
Thank you to Councilmember Burkley Allen and the Vanderbilt administration for making it happen! 1/7
Presides over state ranked 47 in “extremely poor children under age 6” (Children’s Defense Fund), 46 in childhood obesity, 44 in teen pregnancy & 44 in ed funding. Despite COVID, TN held more kids <18 in adult prisons in 2020 than 2019.
Why is TN GOP waging a war on kids?
(5/5)
My great-grandfather Bob McCoy was a band leader whose orchestra played clubs in Cincinnati in the 1920s and 30s. My daughter is doing a school report on Louis Armstrong. My mom found this photo Armstrong signed for McCoy back then. To be a fly on the wall! 🎺🎶
Thrilled to see Perry Wallace has been nominated for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Perry's impact on college sports as a pioneer in the Deep South & his lifetime achievements make him as deserving a candidate as anyone. He would make any HOF more distinguished!
And when Perry died on Dec. 1, 2017, his wishes were to have his memorial service on campus. What a difference this man made ... in many ways, starting 50 years ago today when he refused to just 'shut up and dribble.' (23/23)
Don’t know who else cares about this kind of stuff but the Vanderbilt organist is putting on an absolute clinic with appropriate/witty mini song selections during tonight’s Duke-Vandy NCAA tourney game.
Yesterday's authoritarian power grab by TN GOP was more about silencing dissent than punishing breaches of decorum. Still, it reminded me of a line from David Halberstam's The Children, also set in Nashville, that I used in STRONG INSIDE. The forces of the future - epic indeed!
A close friend of Billie Moore, coach of 1st US women's Olympic basketball team in '76, national champ coach at Cal St-Fullerton & UCLA & mentor to Pat Summitt, says Billie is in home hospice w/ family & appreciates hearing from friends. Legendary figure in women's basketball🙏
Perry Wallace's story is coming to the stage! Nashville Children's Theatre revealed its 2023-24 season tonight, including a play based on Strong Inside by playwright Tyrone Robinson. Area 6th graders can attend free thanks to a growing list of donors. Premieres Sept. 7!
Sports analytics, 1968: "3rd down,6 yards to go.Frank Ryan called '86 slot cross.'Why?The week before,he fed facts & figures into a small console in his den.Miles away, @ a GE time-sharing center,a computer analyzed specific game situations.Then it fed back the best play to call"
Blocks tribute for murdered TN teen b/c Black/gay but honors teen who shot/killed 2 in WI. Opposes mandatory Holocaust education & “divisive concepts” like studying race but loves charter school claiming gains of civil rts movement “ran counter to lofty ideals of Founders” (2/5)
The first day of
#PrideMonth
is a good time to share the news that SINGLED OUT will be among the books featured during the Baseball Hall of Fame's summer author series -- I will be in Cooperstown to talk about the book on Aug. 10 at 1 pm. Full lineup:
Early copies of SINGLED OUT arrived & Nigel Buchanan's cover art looks even more awesome than in the proofs. Such a fun feeling to open the box & see the real books for the 1st time. My bio of Glenn Burke for teens & adults comes out March 2!
Hates public schools but loves spending taxpayer $ on private ones. Says College ID not valid to vote but handgun permit is. Says teen girl should be forced to have her rapist’s baby & likes the idea of child brides (killing a bill to ban marriages when one person is <18) (4/5)
My next book will be on the 1st Special Olympics (Chicago 1968) If you have a connection to that '68 event; know any of the organizers, participants or their families; or have expertise on how people with disabilities were treated in the 60s, grateful for advice or connections!
Today is the 52nd anniversary of Smith & Carlos' protest in Mexico City. On the 50th anniversary for
@TheUndefeated
, I looked at how the American media covered the protest at the time, comparing it to coverage of
@Kaepernick7
This young man in Nashville created a Perry Wallace uniform for Book Character Day last year but the event was canceled due to COVID. His custom-made jersey still fit this year so now he finally got to wear it! A+ for effort & book & character selection. Thanks for sharing!
Inaugural Ballers comes out tomorrow (9/13). It's the story of the 1st US women's Olympic basketball team at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. I loved researching & writing this book. The basketball is fun & important, but the book is about far more than hoops. (1/11)
Opposes health dept sharing info abt flu, measles & mumps vaccines w/ teens but favors banning schools from mask mandates during pandemic. Wants to ban high school books that “normalize" LGBTQ issues but believes teens should carry guns (lowering age to 18 from 21) (3/5)
Driving thru neighborhood, big pickup tailing me. 2 teens revving engine. They blare horn - opening bars of Dixie. Ah, these Brentwood boys are triggered by Biden & BLM bumper stickers. Fools, I thought, especially w/ big red Rudolph nose & furry antlers on their menacing truck
Justin Jones joins Rev. James Lawson as a Vanderbilt Divinity student, so clearly on the right side of history, horribly/embarrassingly mistreated. Little doubt he will continue to go on to make an equally important impact on society