A01=Brian Hallstoos
Author_Brian Hallstoos
Category=DNB
Category=SCBB
Category=SHB
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_sports-fitness
Product details
- ISBN 9780252089121
- Weight: 513g
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 20 Jan 2026
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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A superstar in both football and track and field Sol Butler pioneered the parlaying of sports fame into business prosperity. Brian Hallstoos tells the story of a Black athlete's canny use of mainstream middle-class values and relationships with white society to transcend the athletic, economic, and social barriers imposed by white supremacy. Butler built on his feats as a high school athlete to become a four-year starter for the football team at Dubuque German College (later the University of Dubuque), a record-setting sprinter and long jumper, and an Olympian at the 1920 Summer Games. Hallstoos follows Butler's sporting accomplishments while charting how family and interracial communities influenced the ways Butler tested the limits of social and physical mobility and gave him an exceptional ability to discern where he might be most free. From there, Hallstoos turns to Butler's use of fame to boost his entrepreneurial efforts and his multifaceted success capitalizing on his celebrity in the Black communities of Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. An engaging look at a forgotten trailblazer, Sol Butler illuminates the multifaceted life of a Black sports entrepreneur.
Brian Hallstoos is a professor at the University of Dubuque.
