Andrew Maraniss is the author of Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South, the biography of Perry Wallace, the Vanderbilt basketball player who was the first African American player in the Southeastern Conference. Strong Inside debuted on the New York Times bestseller lists in both the sports and civil rights categories and remained on both lists for four months, an unheard of feat for a first-time author published by a university press. The book is the bestselling book in the history of Vanderbilt University Press, and in May, it received an RFK Book Award, the first sports-related book ever to receive the prestigious honor. Andrew, now a partner at McNeely Pigott & Fox Public Relations in Nashville, was born in Madison and is the son of Madisonians David and Linda Maraniss.