Books, Film, and Music

FILM

Derrick Heggans '92: Beyond the Game 

As a former NFL executive and current managing director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Sports Business Initiative, Derrick Heggans knows the inner workings of professional sports. His film distribution company, Rose Park Productions, has found a niche with some notable documentaries exploring the lives of minority athletes. The company’s titles include a Golf Channel documentary on the history of segregation in golf, a history of black surfers, a look at Babe Ruth’s involvement with civil rights, and a biopic of Jesse Owens. Heggans also was executive producer on Third and Long, a documentary about the history of African Americans in professional football, which aired nationally on CBS in December 2011. Heggans’ upcoming projects include a television documentary on the history of Latinos in baseball, and Young Guns, a sports-based reality competition show for national television. Both are slated to air the summer or fall of 2013.

MUSIC

• After playing in the band Dorian Mode as an undergrad, Winslow Stillman ’72 went on to run a music production company in Nashville and create three syndicated radio programs. He’s returned to creating his own music with Coffee Colored Eyes, his debut CD, inspired by trips he made to Colombia. The music is a fusion of North and South American styles—he calls it “Gringo Latino”—and features an assortment of international jazz and pop players, including Grammy-nominated violinist Alfredo de la Fe.

• From playing in Duke dorms to coverage in Rolling Stone, Delta Rae is on the fast track to success. Featuring third-generation Duke alumni Ian ’07 and Eric ’09 Hölljes, the group’s sound is a raucous hybrid of rock, blues, gospel, and country. Signed by Seymour Stein (Madonna, Talking Heads, The Pretenders), Delta Rae is currently touring in support of its major label debut, Carry the Fire (Sire Records).

BOOKS

• A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty (University Press of Mississippi) by Carolyn Kates Brown ’84. Mississippi author Welty—winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award—mentored many of today’s greatest fiction writers, including Reynolds Price ’55. In this young-adult biography, Brown explores the role Welty’s parents played in shaping her literary interests, her education and influential teachers, and key moments in her career as a writer.

• Savannas of Our Birth (University of California Press) by Robin S. Reid ’79. Reid, director of the Center for Collaborative Conservation at Colorado State University, examines the role African savannas played in human evolution; how people, livestock, and wildlife interact in the region today; and how these relationships might shift as the climate warms, the world globalizes, and human populations grow.

• Getting the Best Out of College (Tenspeed Press) by Sue Wasiolek ’76, M.H.A. ’78, LL.M. ’93, Peter Feaver, and Anne Crossman ’00. Three Duke insiders—Wasiolek is Duke’s assistant vice president for student affairs; Feaver is a professor of political science; and Crossman is a tutor and teacher—share advice on every aspect of college life, from impressing professors to living with roommates to earning rewarding internships. The new edition includes an introduction from Coach K.