Occupation Writer Years active 2003–present | Name Darril Fosty Role Writer | |
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Born Darril Wayne Fosty
December 21, 1968 (age 55)
Terrace, British Columbia ( 1968-12-21 ) Education Western Washington University Books Where Brave Men Fall: The, Tribes: An International Hockey H, Footie's Black Book: A G, Creating Excellence: Inside the, George and Darril Fosty's S | ||
Darril Wayne Fosty (born December 21, 1968) is a Canadian-born sports writer and award-winning author and documentarian.
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Biography
Born in Terrace, British Columbia on December 21, 1968, his family moved to Kamloops, British Columbia where he started grade one. After high school, Fosty moved to Bellingham, Washington where he attended Western Washington University majoring in history and journalism and graduating in 1992. During his college years he played bass guitar with the band First Step considered the 'sister band' for the Seattle-based Brotherhood, the band which included future Sunny Day Real Estate and Foo Fighters' bassist Nate Mendel. "I remember playing shows with him [Nate]. He told me he thought I was [a] good [bassist]. But he only practiced about 2 hours a day and I was practicing up to 12 and thinking, if I am not better than him, I must suck, so I quit playing. Little did I know at the time he was probably the best bassist in Seattle.... If it wasn't for him, I might still be playing."
In 1994, Fosty wrote press releases for the Seattle Sounders FC sports information department. After leaving the Sounders, he worked in the technology industry becoming the first employee of the Internet security start-up Zendit, now Authora. In 2003, Fosty released his first book with his brother George, "Splendid is the Sun: The 5,000 Year History of Hockey."
In 2004, Fosty released the book "Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes, 1895-1925" which briefly entered the US Top 100, and becoming one of the highest charting hockey books in the history of American publishing. In 2012 Black Ice was praised as one of Cuba Gooding Jr.'s Top Four books. According to Oprah.com "this little-known story of the first professional black ice hockey players appealed to Gooding partly because he has been a regular at the rink for the past 17 years. When the slaves escaped the South, some of them went to Philly or New York, but some of them continued on to Canada, where the Indians befriended them," he says. "As I remember the book, the Indians saw the ex-slaves as being in the same situation they were: oppressed by the white man. So they intermarried, shared food—and played. And one of the games they played was hockey. Soon they had teams with names like the Moss Backs—for the moss on the side of a tree that shows you how to get up North to freedom. There was a league of black men playing hockey before the NHL," Gooding says. "Amazing!""
Many believe the book credits Nova Scotia Black hockey players with being the first to develop the slap shot. But according to Fosty the slap shot cannot be attributed to anyone. "No one can invent basic human movement. But, if people feel the need to "credit" others with innovation by being the first to do these types of things in an organized amateur, professional, or semi-professional hockey league then the Colored Hockey League and their players deserve the credit for being the first. During this period, other leagues didn't permit the stick coming over the waist, whereas the Colored Hockey League didn't have any such rule. Because of this, they were able to be innovative without intending to be innovative".
In January 2014, he and his brother George released a follow-up book to Black Ice called Tribes: An International Hockey History.
Fosty's latest book "Where Brave Men Fall: The Battle of Dieppe and the Espionage War Against Hitler, 1939-1942" points a damning finger at American and British news organizations, including Time Magazine and Life Magazine, accusing them of leaking the Battle of Dieppe pre-raid information to the Germans resulting in the deaths, woundings, and capture of over 4,300 American, British and Canadian soldiers.
Personal life
Fosty is currently living in South Berwick, Maine and is the Vice-President of the Society of North American Sports Historians and Researchers (www.sonahrsports.com) and founder of Boxscore World Sportswire (www.boxscorenews.com).