https://www.dougmerlino.net/contact daily 0.75 2020-04-30 https://www.dougmerlino.net/the-hustle daily 0.75 2020-05-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ea3329047fd57049250770b/1588188948720-HHB8QEHCB9EXDZZ79KWL/Hustle+hardcover.jpg The Hustle - The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White The Hustle was my first book and a true labor of love. The seeds were planted in the 1980s. For a few years, I went to an elite private school in Seattle. When I was in the eighth grade, the father of one of my basketball teammates joined with the coach of an African American team from Seattle’s Central Area. We formed a joint team, played in a select league, and went on to win the state championship. The two organizers then worked to get all of my black teammates into various private schools in Seattle. I saw them at football and basketball games throughout high school, but gradually lost touch. I was shocked when, during the summer after my freshman year, one of my black teammates was on the front page of the newspaper. He’d been murdered and left by the side of the road. The headline read: “What Went Wrong? Tyrell Johnson was Young, Black, Male — and Murdered.” The article detailed his involvement with our team. There was no explanation for his murder. I never got it out of my mind, and, finally, in 2002, I began the first of many trips back to Seattle to find my former teammates, starting a research and writing process that took eight years. I found that my youthful friends had grown up to include a hedge fund manager, a prosecutor, a drug dealer, a Pentecostal preacher and schoolteacher, a winemaker, a city employee, and a winemaker. More than that, I found in our story a reflection of the long-running racial and economic divides of the United States. Winner of 2011 Washington State Book Award for Biography/Memoir Buy the book: Amazon Elliott Bay Books Apple Books Audio Book Reviews: “Mindful of the lessons of Du Bois, Dr. King, and others, Doug Merlino shatters post-race fantasies and bears witness to immigrant and African-American struggles, past and present, and weaves them into a captivating, unsentimental and sometimes tragic story of dreams realized, deferred and/or destroyed.”—Nigel Hatton, University of California, Merced “The Hustle somewhat resembles the great documentary series Seven Up, which provides now-and-then profiles of kids shaped by the English class system. Only here, both race and class come into play. Most interesting and affecting about the book are Merlino’s conversations with former teammates—resumed, as it were, after a 15-year gap.”—Seattle Weekly “You know those rare books that hold your rapt attention, the ones that you keep reading until the sun comes up? Doug Merlino’s The Hustle is such a book. Part history text, part sociological study, part memoir, The Hustle is more than just a book about basketball. It’s a book about America. It’s a book about the country’s past and present. It’s a book that you have to read.”—SLAM Magazine “By reminding readers that questions of race and social mobility are at bottom really questions about what kind of people are granted what sort of life opportunities, The Hustle allows us to see our often recursive and overheated debates over such questions play out on a personal, frequently tragic scale.”—Bookforum “The book digs deeply, compassionately and intelligently into [race in America].”—TrueHoop, ESPN.com “A provocative and candid commentary on the history of class, race, and wealth in Seattle and in America.”—Seatown Sports “A captivating memoir that sees racial and class divides in intimate personal terms, but with no easy pieties or excuses, no righteous indignation or blame.”—Crosscut.com “Anyone concerned with improving the U.S. educational system must read this book, which brilliantly highlights the problems and possibilities facing schools and students. At the same time, Doug Merlino also tells a broader story of race in America that vividly brings ten boys, and the men they became, to life. The Hustle is a wonderful reading experience.”—Robert L. Bernstein, founder, Human Rights Watch; former president, Random House “Working on an apparently small canvas, Doug Merlino has managed to look widely and deeply into race and class, idealism and dead-end despair in America. This unusual combination of sensitive memoir and incisive reporting tells us a great deal about the nation we are and the one we dream of. A fascinating and haunting book.”—Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost and Bury the Chains “As a boy, Doug Merlino was part of something special: A championship basketball team that drew players from both sides of Seattle’s racial divide. The Hustle is his elegant, absorbing account of what became of his ex-teammates, and how their lives were inevitably affected by the color of their skin. It is impossible to read this book and not be deeply moved.” —Brendan I. Koerner, author of Now the Hell Will Start “[Merlino] paints a timeline vividly, in fact and circumstance, to unveil twists and turns, sadness and joy, conscience and tragedy . . . A great read.” —Douglas Morrison, The Novel Road blog “Merlino skillfully weaves the personal biographies with the biography of a city that relegated blacks to neighborhoods that were segregated and poor, to the margins of economic life, to public schools that were overcrowded and underfunded. The book’s precise focus enables troubling considerations of the role of race and class in America.”—Kirkus Reviews “A very thoughtful, perceptive, and moving chronicle of the journey from adolescence to manhood.”—Booklist “Expecting a conventional basketball book? Look elsewhere. Although the central focus is ten members of a biracial boys basketball team, freelance journalist Merlino, in his first book, is writing about race relations and the changing socioeconomic experiences and expectations of five black and five white kids who came together in 1986 to form an Amateur Athletic Union basketball team in Seattle. The book provides remarkable insight into the fortunes and misfortunes of the ten kids who shared a court but never a dream. For Merlino, who was on the team, the titular hustle is the drive to achieve in today’s competitive economy. Readers will witness the omnipresent racial divide in Seattle and the nation, in the workplace, and in a secondary school setting. The chapter on Seattle’s Lakeside School, a private K-12 institution, is compelling reading for today’s parents and educators. The former teammates whom Merlino traced up to the present include a prosecutor, a financial manager, a preacher/teacher, a writer, a street hustler—and a murder victim. This book, both memoir and social analysis, is an essential read as a recent social history and personal story of America.”—Boyd Childress, Auburn University Libraries, Alabama, Library Journal https://www.dougmerlino.net/about daily 0.75 2021-08-06 https://www.dougmerlino.net/the-crossover daily 0.75 2020-05-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ea3329047fd57049250770b/1588192988026-WCFCL7KCMZAK7VJ8MGX9/Crossover+cover.jpg The Crossover - The Crossover: A Brief History of Basketball and Race The Crossover is my exploration of the historical interconnections of race and basketball in the United States. In ten focused chapters that highlight characters both famous (Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird) and more obscure (John McLendon, Earl Lloyd, Holcombe Rucker), this book explores how what’s happened on the basketball court has mirrored race relations in the United States–and often preceded changes off of it. Buy the Book Amazon Apple Books Reviews “Doug Merlino crosses many sociocultural boundaries to offer casual and hardcore fans alike a glimpse into the racial and economic divide that spans more than a century of American basketball. From Springfield to Harlem to Miami (with many stops in between), The Crossover beautifully ties together the pioneers who have forever altered both the game and the business of basketball.” – Alan Brown, University of Alabama, College of Education https://www.dougmerlino.net/beast daily 0.75 2020-05-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ea3329047fd57049250770b/1588192610353-EC3W0JLYV9VOM0503PNT/Beast_HC_cat.jpg Beast - Beast: Blood, Struggle and Dreams at the Heart of Mixed Martial Arts Beast started one night when my neighbor’s boyfriend in New York City convinced me to go to a bar and watch a UFC fight with him. It was the first time I’d paid any attention to mixed martial arts fighting. But as we squeezed into the crowded bar and watched pairs of men climb into a cage and pummel each other, I became fascinated. Who were these guys? I wondered. What drew them to this sport? How did this whole thing work? I ended up connecting with Jeff Monson, an aging fighter known for his strident anarchist views. He trained at a large gym in the South Florida suburbs, which attracted professional fighters from places as far flung as Brazil and Chechnya. I embedded myself at the gym, eventually following four fighters over the course of two years. In addition to Monson, who was beginning a bizarre late-career resurrection as a star in Russia, they included Mirsad Bektic, a Bosnian refugee and top prospect; Daniel Straus, a former Ohio state high school wrestling standout who started cage fighting after a stint of incarceration and had fought his way into title contention; and Steve Mocco, a former NCAA wrestling champion and Olympic competitor looking to break into the sport. The result is an unvarnished look into the ups and downs of this brutal sport as well as personal reckoning with masculinity, anger and violence. Buy the Book Amazon iBooks Audio Book Reviews “[A] gifted writer, [Merlino’s] got me thinking seriously about the history, culture and business of professional cage fighting.” —The New York Times Book Review “Easily the best book on MMA that I have ever read.” ―Eddie Goldman, No Holds Barred “An intimate portrayal of the world of Mixed Martial Arts . . . Told in a candid and nicely flowing conversational tone, this story will certainly appeal to MMA followers but may also attract a broader range of sports fans, in the manner of John Feinstein’s similar days-in-the-life accounts. The best of the growing collection of MMA literature.” ―starred review, Booklist “Merlino is able to get into these fighters’ minds and souls to find out what exactly makes them tick. This is as inside a look at MMA as you’re going to get without actually being there yourself. A must-read for MMA fans.” ―MMA Manifesto “An inside look at the industry of MMA and the humanity of its fighters.” ―Vice “What makes Beast such a spectacular read, other than the author’s sheer storytelling skill, is that Merlino didn’t simply interview fighters and coaches. He spent two years training alongside them, living with them, and traveling with them to their fights. He met their friends and family. The result is a book that is both profound and, at times, nail-bitingly tense.” ―Century Martial Arts “This is more than a tour guide of a violent underworld. It is also a philosophic statement about conflict, understanding it, facing it, owning it, dealing with it. A wonderful dark read.” ―Bill Buford, author of AMONG THE THUGS and HEAT “Beautifully reported and written with rollicking flair, Beast is every bit as electric as the ferocious sport it chronicles. Doug Merlino’s extraordinary book perfectly captures not only the brutal splendor of mixed martial arts, but also the ways in which so many ambitious young men and women seek salvation through controlled violence. By the time you reach the last page, you will be so emotionally invested in each fighter’s turbulent journey that you’ll yearn for a sequel–or, better yet, a trilogy.” ―Brendan I. Koerner, author of THE SKIES BELONG TO US “A poignant, intimate look at professional fighters and their lives. Merlino pulls you in as he was pulled in; and in the end, understanding is earned, not given.” ―Sam Sheridan, author of A FIGHTER’S HEART and THE FIGHTER’S MIND “Doug Merlino takes the reader way down into the grain of fighting lives: the gym, the road, the business, the complexities of desire and fear, the spectacle of fight night. A patiently observed, deeply felt book about the craft and meaning of skilled violence.” ―Carlo Rotella, author of CUT TIME: AN EDUCATION AT THE FIGHTS “One of the best books written on MMA; readers don’t have to be fans of the sport to appreciate this story.” ―Library Journal “Insightful . . . Merlino provides an enhanced picture for anyone who wants to look past the glitz and glamour of the spotlights presented on television and see the grit and sacrifice required from anyone who wants to step into the octagon.” ―Publishers Weekly “Merlino consistently captures the grit, determination, and sheer willpower of these hungry warriors . . . Fascinating.” ―Kirkus Reviews https://www.dougmerlino.net/home daily 1.0 2021-08-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ea3329047fd57049250770b/1587754073097-2YBMO1D01H62KFX07P0J/Capture.jpg Home - I’m a writer based in New York City.