Big Sky champion
800m and 1000m
Beyond
AmbitionThe Color of Black
He worked the farm before dawn. He walked on to a college team that never recruited him. He won anyway.
Idaho State walk-on
Never recruited
St. Kitts
Sandy Point
For students
School and college
A life that refused to stay small.
Beyond Ambition: The Color of Black is the true story of a boy from Sandy Point who carried poverty, labor, and abuse into the morning dark, and still found a lane wide enough to run.
Ezzard Wilson grew up on the island of St. Kitts, in a sharecropper family of three brothers and four sisters. School by day. The farm before first light. Child labor. Harm at home and in the classroom. A childhood that could have closed every door.
Instead it opened a track. Local school sport became national representation. High school in 1973 became a Grade 4 classroom at Vanduyn Public School. August 1976 became Idaho State University, a walk-on who was never recruited, and a champion who could not be ignored.
This memoir is written for everyone, and aimed especially at middle school, high school, and college students. It is a warning and a gift: do not confuse loyalty with self-erasure. Do not hand your future to an institution that will not carry it.
What the book holds.
An autobiography of sport and schooling, and of the prejudice that still tries to write a young athlete’s ending before the race begins.
Poverty
Subsistence farming in the foothills. Work at two and three in the morning. A childhood spent keeping a family fed.
Prejudice
Racism, abuse, and discrimination, and the cost of trusting a world still fluent in both.
The walk-on
Idaho State, 1976. No recruitment. Four individual Big Sky titles in the 800m and 1000m.
After the tape
Biology and pre-med. A master’s in environmental science. A life in the classroom, not only on the track.
“It serves to educate young athletes, especially African Americans, about the pitfalls of becoming too complacent and trusting in an environment still dominated by prejudice and deceit.”The purpose of the book
4×Big Sky champion
800Meters & 1000m
1976Walk-on at Idaho State
St. KittsTo the United States
The lane he ran.
Four rooms in one life. An island farm. A Grade 4 classroom. A college track that never sent a letter. A career spent teaching the next runner how to keep their own name.
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Childhood
Sandy Point
St. Kitts. Sharecropper family. Farm labor before dawn. School by day. Local sport that became a national jersey.
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1973 to 1976
The classroom
High school graduate. Grade 4 teacher at Vanduyn Public School. Then the departure for the United States in August 1976.
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Idaho State
The walk-on
Never recruited. Four individual Big Sky titles in the 800m and 1000m. A B.S. in Biology that proved the jersey was never the whole story.
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After the tape
Educator
M.S. in Environmental Science. Doctoral coursework. A memoir written so students can see the traps as clearly as the medals.
Who the book is for.
Written for everyone. Aimed especially at middle school, high school, and college students, and the coaches, parents, and teachers walking beside them.
Keep the sport. Keep your life.
A clear look at complacency, misplaced trust, and the danger of handing a future to a team that will not carry it.
Classroom to college.
A path that does not pretend the road is fair, only that it can still be walked with your eyes open.
Talent is not protection.
A reminder for parents, coaches, and teachers: ambition without awareness can be used against the student it lifts.
Ezzard Wilson
An aspiring athlete who walked on to the Idaho State University track team in 1976. Despite the odds, he won four individual Big Sky championships while earning a Bachelor of Science in Biology (pre-med) with a minor in Physical Education. He later completed a Master’s in Environmental Science and built a career as an educator.
He writes so others can learn from the path, the hay rides and Halloween dances as much as the medals, the farm as much as the finish line.
From the journal.
Short essays around the memoir. Origin, caution, and the meaning of a title that refuses to look away.
From Sandy Point to Idaho State
The island mornings that trained a champion long before a coach ever called his name.
Read the essayWhat “The Color of Black” holds
On a subtitle that is not decoration, and a life lived inside other people’s assumptions.
Read the essayA letter to young athletes
Love the sport. Do not hand the rest of your life to the institution that benefits from that love.
Read the essayBring the memoir into the room.
Assemblies, English classes, athletic departments, first-generation student groups, and community nights. A reading, the walk-on years, and a Q&A that does not flatten hardship into a slogan.
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School and college visits Middle school through university. Built for the classroom and the locker room.
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Athlete conversations Loyalty, recruiting culture, prejudice, and how not to surrender a life to a jersey.
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Community gatherings Caribbean diaspora, family literacy nights, and local history programs in New Jersey and beyond.
Get a copy.
Hardcover, paperback, and digital editions are being prepared. Schools may request classroom sets while the catalog links are finished.
Hardcover
Coming soon
The collector’s edition. Built to last on a shelf, in a library, and in a family that passes books down.
Paperback
Coming soon
The classroom companion. Light enough to annotate. Serious enough to teach from.
eBook
Coming soon
For readers on the move, athletes, commuters, and students between practice and class.