Cecil Harris

Cecil Harris is the author of Charging the Net: A History of Blacks in Tennis from Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe to the Williams Sisters (Ivan R. Dee, publisher), a New York Times' Editors' Choice selection co-written with Larryette Kyle DeBose.

Cecil's other books are Call the Yankees My Daddy: Reflections on Baseball, Race, and Family (The Lyons Press), a memoir about his lifelong allegiance to the 26-time World Series champion New York Yankees, and Breaking the Ice: The Black Experience in Professional Hockey (Insomniac Press), the first book to chronicle the unique history of blacks in hockey, from the early 1900s to the present. For his work on Breaking the Ice, Cecil received a Sun God award for Outstanding Sports Research from the Society Of North American Historians and Researchers (SONAHR).

During a stint at Gannett-Westchester Newspapers in the 1990s, Cecil became the first full-time black beat writer to cover the Yankees. He earned regional and corporate honors for his coverage. Cecil has also written for Newsday, the New York Post, The (Raleigh) News & Observer, The Indianapolis Star, The Sporting News, The Hockey News, The New York Times and The (New York) City Sun.

Cecil has covered such major events as the 1996 Olympics, the World Series, the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup finals, the NCAA basketball championships, the NCAA Division I football championship, the New York City Marathon and the U.S. Open tennis championships.

Cecil graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University. He lectures on sports from a sociological perspective. He has taught Sports Marketing and Management at Concordia College in Bronxville, New York. He writes and edits for New York Road Runners (the organizers of the ING New York City Marathon). He lives in Yonkers, New York.