Gerald Lyn Early, an American essayist and culture critic, is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters, and professor of English and African and African American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. He was the founding director of the university's Humanities center, and is currently the chair of the African and African American Studies Department.  Twice nominated for Grammy Award, he also served as a consultant on Ken Burns' documentary films Baseball, Jazz, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, Jackie Robinson, and The War.  His essays have appeared in numerous editions of Best American Essays; his most recent book is The Cambridge Companion to Boxing, due out in 2018.

Ross Gay, who teaches at Indiana University, is the author of Against Which, Bringing the Shovel Down, and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.  Catalog was also a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry, the Ohioana Book Award, the Balcones Poetry Prize, the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, and a nominee for an NAACP Image Award. A founding co-editor of the online sports magazine Some Call it Ballin',  and an editor at the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press,  Ross is also a founding member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ross.  

Elizabeth Crane is the author of four collections of short stories  and two novels. Her work has been translated into several languages, and featured in numerous anthologies and publications, including Other Voices, Guernica, LitHub, Chicago Magazine and The Believer. Crane's stories have been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts; she is a recipient of the Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award. Her work has been adapted for the stage by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company; a feature film adaptation of We Only Know So Much is set for a 2018 release. She teaches in the UCR-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program.

At 22, in 1974, Wayne Slappy became the youngest head basketball coach in the history of his alma mater, Weequahic High School; subsequently he taught in the Newark public school system for nineteen years. He has been associated with the Five-Star Basketball Camp network of coaches ever since he coached Michael Jordan there; after moving to Los Angeles, Wayne has provided skills training and advice to a host of professional athletes who have played or currently are on NBA rosters. He has also helped hundreds of high school athletes to gain collegiate scholarships.