The Greatest Athlete in American History: Jim Thorpe or Bo Jackson? Bestselling Authors David Maraniss and Jeff Pearlman Debate

Who is the greatest ever American athlete: Olympic gold medalist and New York Giant Jim Thorpe (1887-1953), also the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame; or Bo Jackson (born 1962), the only person named an All-Star in both baseball and football? Cast your vote following a spirited debate between David Maraniss, author of Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe, and Jeff Pearlman, author of The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson. Dan Shaughnessy, sports columnist and associate editor at the Boston Globe, will join them as moderator/referee. Don’t miss this spirited discussion among three celebrated journalists and bestselling authors!

To attend, please register on this Zoom webinar registration page.

About the authors

David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post and a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and was a finalist three other times. Among his bestselling books are biographies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Roberto Clemente, and Vince Lombardi, and a trilogy about the 1960s—Rome 1960; Once in a Great City (winner of the RFK Book Prize); and They Marched into Sunlight (winner of the J. Anthony Lucas Prize and Pulitzer Finalist in History).

Jeff Pearlman is the New York Times best-selling author of ten books, including The Bad Guys Won, Boys Will Be Boys, Showtime, and Sweetness. HBO adapted Showtime, his book on the 1980s Lakers, into a major scripted dramatic series produced and directed by Adam McKay. A former Sports Illustrated senior writer and ESPN.com columnist, Pearlman is the host of the Two Writers Slinging Yang podcast and blogs regularly at jeffpearlman.com.

About the moderator

Dan Shaughnessy is a sports columnist and associate editor at the Boston Globe. He has been named Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year 14 times and 12 times has been voted one of America's top ten sports columnists by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2016, at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, he received a BBWAA Career Excellence Award. Among his thirteen books: the New York Times bestseller Francona; The Curse of the Bambino; Senior Year, and, most recently, Wish It Lasted Forever – Life With The Larry Bird Celtics, a book about his days covering the 1980s Bird Celtics.

This program is part of the American Inspiration Series from American Ancestors/NEHGS and presented in partnership with the Boston Public Library and the GBH Forum Network. Copies of these books will be made available for ordering by Porter Square Books.

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