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“Rarely have we gotten such a vivid look into the reality of how big-time players avoided becoming statistics and got to be great football players and life survivors instead.”—Peter King, Sports Illustrated
“Dorsey tackles the story of his adopted community with an ideal balance of reverence and objectivity.”—Billy Corben, director, Cocaine Cowboys and ESPNâ™s The U “A moving meditation on hope and despair, wealth and poverty, dreams and reality, a book that answers the worthwhile question: how could one troubled American neighborhood produce so many NFL players?”—Steve Rushin, Sports Illustrated “Dorsey takes us behind those Friday Night Lights, getting inside the hearts and homes of high school football legends who rise, and sometimes fall, in their quest for NFL fame and fortune.”—Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe “A story that is purely, wonderfully, tragically American. The theme is football, but the threads Dorsey pursues demand a larger stage.”—Randy Wayne White, author of the Doc Ford novels For the young men of Dunbar—the low-income, historically segregated neighborhoods of Fort Myers, Florida—avoiding the path that leads to easy money as a drug dealer often means choosing complete devotion to football and dreams of NFL stardom. While such dreams remain out of reach for most, an astonishing number of Dunbar athletes, including NFL idols Deion Sanders, Jevon Kearse, and Earnest Graham, have achieved massive success. Fourth Down in Dunbar is the story of how one community, plagued by drugs and violence, where many children are fatherless, gave rise to so many stellar youth athletes. Using Sanders as the centerpiece of the story, David Dorsey explores Dunbarâ™s history to show how the same drug culture that ruined so many promising futures also served as motivation for football success. As a reporter for the Fort Myers News-Press, Dorsey had exclusive access to the players and their relatives. He shows the success of the wildly talented as well as the regrets of those who took the wrong path, while highlighting hope for the future of Dunbar. In this poignant tale of heartbreak and triumph, Dorsey reveals the true nature of these men who overcame the obstacles in their lives and made their families and their hometown proud. Publisher: University Press of Florida (September 23, 2014) Language: English ISBN-10: 0813060192 ISBN-13: 978-0813060194 Editorial Reviews Review “An outstanding new book.”—Fox Sports “[A] probing history of a poor, drug-riddled Florida neighborhood that cranks out NFLers, from Prime Time to Sammy Watkins.”—Sports Illustrated About the Author David A. Dorsey is a writer for the Fort Myers News-Press. He also has written for the Kansas City Star and USA Today. Most Helpful Customer Reviews Can't wait for a 30 for 30 Treatment on this book By Gene D. on August 20, 2014 Every city has a traditionally segregated area in town but only Ft Myers has Dunbar, the birthplace of so many star athletes-Deion Sanders, Jevon Kearse, the NBA's Walt Wesley, and now Sammy Watkins to name a few. Mr. Dorsey does a great job of blending personal stories of those who have made it as well as those who have been sidelined by other circumstances, to give an interesting look at a relatively small section of Ft Myers, Florida. A great read for sports fans. One of the best researched books I have read. author David Dorsey gives us a series of profiles of great, near great By F. Cook on August 29, 2014 Every high school guidance counselor, varsity coach and middle school coach in America should own at least two copies of "Fourth Down in Dunbar" -- one to keep on his or her desk, and the other to loan out to the parents of rising young athletes who dream of making it big in professional sports. In Fourth Down, author David Dorsey gives us a series of profiles of great, near great, and could-have-been great athletes who came out of the segregated neighborhood of Dunbar in Fort Myers, Fla. With a reporter's prose, he writes without emotion about those athletes who ended up in the end zone, and those who ended up in court, those who ended up in the NFL draft, and those who ended up in prison. Although Dorsey focuses on football (the center piece of the book is no less than Deion Sanders), the opportunities and hazards cited in Fourth Down can be found in every sport and in every school in the country: Poverty? Some find a way around it, some don't. Prejudice? Some rise above, some don't. Drugs? Many succumb, but some don't. Fourth Down does not glorify youth sports, nor vilify it. It is a book about individual courage and character, parenting, strength of community and crippling distractions. And yes, a few lucky breaks. It's an important read. 
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