As Colin Kaepernick approached the tip of highschool, he had a determination to make: He might pursue baseball, for which he was already being scouted, or he might strive to play soccer, a sport the place he felt he might embrace his group and his identification.
Kaepernick selected soccer, and have become extensively identified for taking a knee throughout the nationwide anthem at skilled soccer video games to protest police brutality and racial injustice
On Wednesday, Kaepernick and Scholastic introduced they’d publish a e book concerning the interval when he had to make this selection — a younger grownup graphic novel known as “Colin Kaepernick: Change the Game,” which is scheduled to be launched subsequent spring.
“Many of my experiences in high school helped to anchor me in my understanding of Blackness, my community, and my sense of worth,” he stated in an electronic mail. “High school affirmed for me that it’s sometimes only by transgressing social expectations that we’re able to transform into our truest selves.”
Illustrated by Orlando Caicedo, “Change the Game” was written by Kaepernick and Eve L. Ewing, whose work contains fiction, nonfiction, poetry and the “Ironheart” sequence for Marvel Comics. The e book is geared toward each youngsters and adults and can be copublished by Scholastic and Kaepernick Publishing — the partnership that produced Kaepernick’s kids’s e book, “I Color Myself Different,” this spring.
“We are thrilled to work with Colin again on the publication of this second book based on his life experience,” stated Debra Dorfman, the writer of Scholastic’s world licensing, manufacturers and media. “Everyone faces a crossroad in their life — Colin’s teenage years were defining and his inspirational story reminds readers of all ages not to conform to others’ expectations.”
Kaepernick was a proficient pitcher in highschool, when he was scouted by schools and main league baseball. His mother and father, academics and coaches all believed that was his means ahead, however Kaepernick wasn’t all that within the sport. The description of Kaepernick’s new e book quotes Adam Jones, a five-time All-Star M.L.B. participant, who stated that “baseball is a white man’s sport.”
Baseball, Kaepernick defined, “would force me into spaces where I would face open racism and have fewer resources of cultural support.” Football, however, he stated, would “provide me with real opportunities to fully embrace my culture, identity, and community.”
He went on to play faculty soccer for the University of Nevada and have become a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers.
“‘Change the Game’ is about how power and resistance operate in the real world and how young people can embrace their autonomy and live life on terms that uplift them,” Kaepernick stated. “I want young people to have courage, confidence, and conviction in who they are and what they are capable of, regardless of obstacles they may face.”