Both a plug and a recommendation ...

I don't read a whole lot of sports books because I firmly believe that being a well-rounded reader makes you a better writer, but I just got done with Fourth Down in Dunbar. 

Before I describe why you should definitely go out of your way to check it out, a little background. I know the author, David Dorsey, and we used to work together at the Fort Myers News-Press. Many of the people profiled in the book I covered my first few years as a sportswriter, like Jammi German, Jevon Kearse, Anthony Henry, Phillip Buchanon and Earnest Graham. A couple others, including Najeh Davenport and Terrence Cody I crossed paths with later while covering NFL and college teams.

One of the first lessons you learn as a reporter is to try and be as objective as possible, but I couldn't help but quietly root for the kids from Dunbar because of how tough that area was and almost none of them had fathers in their lives.

One day in particular brought home the point. It was in January 1995, Deion Sanders was about to play in Super Bowl XXIX and the newspaper was going to have a series called "A Daily Dose of Deion." I was given a dual weekend assignment: Do a story on former Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson giving a speech to cancer survivors -- he had gone through a bout with prostate cancer -- and then drive out to the neighborhood where Sanders grew up and see if I could find people to comment on his playing in a Super Bowl.

Dawson couldn't have been nicer so I was in a really good mood when I headed out to Dunbar, just down the street from the newspaper office. I had the address of where Sanders had grown up, but this was before GPS, so when I got to Henderson Avenue I didn't know which way to turn off Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. I went right, which was the wrong way.

Two blocks up the road I saw a large crowd of people gathered and thought I would simply ask for directions. However, when I got close I saw what they were watching, a dog fight. I hit the accelerator but the street was a dead end and there was only one way out. That's when I started to get nervous. Sure enough, when I turned around and went back I had things thrown at me and a few people chased my car, but nothing else.

This is an important book and David did a terrific job. It's the perfect documentation of a talent-rich community that seems to be in a never-ending circle of drugs, violence and poverty, and of how the choices kids make can affect their whole lives. I highly recommend it for football fans, counselors, youth coaches, counselors, parents and athletes everywhere.

It can be ordered on Amazon.