Thoughtful…A well-crafted life of a man who, though now largely out of the spotlight, enjoyed a storied career.
~Kirkus
For anyone who wants to understand what made one of the game's greatest running backs tick, [Earl Campbell is] well worth your time.
~Mike Freeman, Bleacher Report
[A] comprehensive biography…Will appeal to readers wishing to learn more about Campbell and this era of both college and professional sports as well as Texas history.
~Library Journal
Asher Price's book about the legendary UT running back is full of surprises.
~Texas Monthly
[Campbell's story] is captured in riveting detail and with crisp analysis…The point of Earl Campbell: Yards After Contact…is to recenter the running back and his career in our understanding of the history of both football and race in Texas…It’s an important story, and Price tells it well."
~Texas Observer
Carefully crafted, but brutally honest, [Earl Campbell is] as much a commentary on race and football culture as it is a tribute to the Heisman Trophy winner and two-time NFL MVP.
~Austin Monthly
A revealing story of race and class in Texas.
~austin360
Deeply researched and reported...Earl Campbell is an argument against the insistent call for athletes and sportswriters to 'stick to sports' and ignore the larger world—an argument we still hear in the age of Colin Kaepernick and the NBA vs. China.
~Texas Monthly
A gripping and very powerful account of what Earl Campbell had to fight through to push along the integration of Texas football.
~Literary Hub
Earl Campbell’s saga as an African American sports celebrity in the largely unreconstructed State of Texas contains elements of triumph and tragedy, and Asher Price’s extraordinary new biography captures it all with riveting prose, gifted storytelling, and a carefully crafted analysis of race, region, and football mania. Not since the appearance of H. G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights have we seen such an important and insightful book on the world of Texas football.
~Raymond Arsenault, author of Arthur Ashe: A Life and Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice
Whenever I watched Earl Campbell play on television, his impossibly powerful runs seemed almost folkloric--John Henry wielding a stiff-arm. This splendid biography conveys not only Campbell’s superhuman feats, but—even more impressively—his underlying humanity. In Asher Price’s formidable hands, Campbell becomes a prism for examining our nation’s struggle for racial equality and the punishments inflicted by our nation’s most popular sport. Price writes with verve and style and has succeeded in doing nothing less than establishing a new standard for sports biography.
~Justin Driver, author of The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind
Earl Campbell is a towering figure in the history of sports. Finally, there is a book worthy of the man.
~Dave Zirin, sports editor at The Nation
Asher Price profiles not only the greatest running back ever but the football-infused Texas culture that produced, rewarded, and exploited him. From Earl Campbell's birth in segregated Tyler to his retirement in a wealthy Austin suburb, Price captures every telling detail in his painstakingly reported and beautifully crafted book. Anyone interested in football, and its future, needs to read Earl Campbell: Yards after Contact to understand the sport's problems and promise.
~Chris Tomlinson, author of Tomlinson Hill: The Remarkable Story of Two Families Who Share the Tomlinson Name--One White, One Black and columnist for the Houston Chronicle