The Lincoln Theatre To Host National Book Launch Of Wil Haygood's TIGERLAND

The Lincoln Theatre Association and The Ohio State University Athletic Department celebrate the national release of Columbus native Wil Haygood's newest book, Tigerland, with a launch event on Wednesday, September 19, at the Lincoln Theatre. Tigerland is the inspiring true story of two teams from poor, black, and segregated East High School (Columbus), who, amid the racial turbulence of the 1968-69 school year, won both the baseball and basketball state championships.

Moderated by US District Judge Algenon L. Marbley, Southern District of Ohio, the event will be a live interview of Haygood followed by a Q&A and book signing. Members of the 1968-69 East High School baseball and basketball teams will also be recognized and honored during the event.

The national launch event of Wil Haygood's Tigerland will be held at the Lincoln Theatre (769 E. Long St.) on Wednesday, September 19, at 7 pm. Tickets are $25 and $50 (VIP ticket includes one pre-signed copy of Tigerland) at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 469-0939 or (800) 745-3000.

Tigerland will also be available for purchase at the event (Penguin Random House/Knopf release date: September 18, 2018).

1968 and 1969: Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy are assassinated within months of each other in 1968. Race relations are frayed like never before. Cities are aflame as demonstrations and riots proliferate. But in Columbus, Ohio, the Tigers of segregated East High School go on to win the baseball and basketball championships for the '68-'69 season, defeating bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state.

This spirited and stirring account of this improbable triumph takes us deep into the personal lives of these local heroes-Robert Wright, power forward, whose father was a murderer; Kenny Mizelle, the Tigers' second baseman, who grew up under the false impression that his father had died; Eddie "Rat" Ratleff, the star of both teams, who would play for the 1972 US Olympic basketball team. We meet Jack Gibbs, the first black principal at East High; Bob Hart, the white basketball coach, determined to fight against the injustices he saw inflicting his team; the hometown fans who followed the Tigers to stadiums across the state.

All this in the context of the racially charged, late 1960s. The result is both an inspiring sports story, and a singularly illuminating social history.

A Columbus native and former King-Lincoln District resident, Wil Haygood is currently a visiting distinguished professor in the department of media, journalism, and film at his alma mater, Miami University (Ohio). For nearly three decades, he was a journalist, serving as a national and foreign correspondent at The Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and then The Washington Post.

Haygood is the author of seven prior books:

• Two on the River (1986)
• The King of Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1993)
• The Haygoods of Columbus (1997)
• In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr. (2003)
• Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson (2009)
• The Butler: A Witness to History (2013)
• Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America (2015)

The Butler was also adapted into the critically acclaimed film directed by Lee Daniels in 2013, starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey.

Haygood has received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and the 2017 Patrick Henry Fellowship Literary Award for his research on Tigerland.

In 2010, he was the first name engraved into the Lincoln Theatre's Walk of Fame tribute monument, honoring his international literary and journalistic contributions.

www.LincolnTheatreColumbus.com

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