Walking Alone - by Dan Taylor (Hardcover)

About the Book

Walking Alone is the inspirational story of African American trailblazer Kenny Washington, the first player to reintegrate the NFL and the first Black football coach in America, considered by many to be the greatest football player of his time.

Book Synopsis

Walking Alone is the inspirational story of African American trailblazer Kenny Washington, the first player to reintegrate the NFL and the first Black football coach in America, considered by many to be the greatest football player of his time.

Review Quotes

A life as remarkable as Kenny Washington's deserves a spotlight as bright as the one Dan Taylor shines with this book. Finally, one of America's great trailblazers gets his due. This is a must read.

Dan Taylor has written a comprehensive and excellent biography shining a light on remarkable talent and the impact Washington had as well as the challenges and racism he overcame. It brilliantly captures the American sporting landscape of the late 30's, 40's and 50's and the difficulties of black athletes at the time. Walking Alone is well researched, well written and an enjoyable engaging read.

Taylor writes the first solo biography devoted to swivel-hipped tailback Kenny Washington (1918-71), who was the best known of the four Black athletes (the others being Woody Strode, Bill Willis, and Marion Motley) who broke the color barrier in American pro football in 1946. Washington was every bit the pioneer that his onetime UCLA baseball and football teammate Jackie Robinson was, but Washington's legacy has been much more obscured, Taylor posits. (Though in recent years, Washington has been included in three group biographies that focused also on Strode, Willis, and Motley.) Washington was already 27 and hampered by bad knees by the time he was finally signed by the Los Angeles Rams in 1946, but teammate Bob Waterfield still called him the best player he ever saw. Based on archival research and the author's interviews with Washington's surviving family members, Taylor's book is a fine read that elucidates Washington's impacts on football and civil rights. A long-overdue thorough treatment of a largely forgotten giant in sports history; it should be widely read.

About the Author

Dan Taylor is a former award-winning television sportscaster. He is the author of Fate's Take-Out Slide in collaboration with George Genovese, A Scout's Report: My 70-Years in Baseball, Rise of the Bulldogs, and Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball. Taylor is involved with the television broadcast team for the Fresno Grizzlies of the Pacific Coast League and is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the Pacific Coast League Historical Society. He resides in Fresno, California.