Keith Dunnavant

Keith Dunnavant is the author of eight non-fiction books, including definitive biographies of football icons Paul "Bear" Bryant, Bart Starr and Joe Montana, the history-challenging Cold War story SPY PILOT (co-authored with Francis Gary Powers, Jr.), and SPEED, which takes readers into the stratospheric life of SR-71 test pilot Bob Gilliland and the shadowy world of the Lockheed Skunk Works. He often explores the collision of sports and culture, most notably in THE MISSING RING, which focuses on the 1966 Alabama football team's pursuit of perfection in an imperfect world, against the backdrop of a time and place on the brink. THE FIFTY-YEAR SEDUCTION, which has been utilized as a textbook at various universities, traces the cause-and-effect of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Board of Regents decision—the earthquake that launched the modern age of college football. Dunnavant, who hosts the AMERICAN ACHIEVERS podcast and is frequently seen on television programs dealing with college football history, produced/directed the civil rights documentary THREE DAYS AT FOSTER, which aired in syndication, and co-directed the ESPN Films documentary BART STARR. He started writing about Southeastern Conference sports as a teenager, covered national college football for THE NATIONAL, was a long-time contributor to BUSINESSWEEK, SPORT and ATLANTA, and spent two decades in magazine management and ownership, directing coverage of media, sports, business, culture and politics.