About Martin Dobrow

Author, national award-winning journalist, podcaster, and professor

Martin Dobrow excavates the extraordinary stories of little-known characters to shed light on America’s hard quest for “liberty and justice for all.”

His forthcoming book, Original City, Original Sin (Cambridge University Press, 2026), tells the story of forgotten heroes of the civil rights movement in St. Augustine, Florida, the nation’s oldest city, which became the crucible for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Original City is the culmination of two decades spent at the intersection of deep reporting, civil rights scholarship, and narrative storytelling.

Dobrow writes what he calls mosaic nonfiction, weaving together archival research, oral histories, and on-the-ground reporting to reveal how individual lives illuminate larger historical forces.

Dobrow is the author of two previous books. Knocking on Heaven’s Door: Six Minor Leaguers in Search of the Baseball Dream (2010, UMass Press) received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, which called it “beautifully written, meticulously orchestrated.” His 1996 book, Going Bigtime, was positively reviewed in Sports Illustrated, and listed as one of the “top 10 books on basketball history” by sports historian Peter Bjarkman.

He has written over 2,000 articles for a wide range of publications, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, ESPN, and The Boston Globe. Dobrow has won first place in national writing contests sponsored by the Associated Press Sports Editors and the United States Basketball Writers Association. Six of his stories were cited for excellence in the annual anthology, The Best American Sports Writing.

Along with his former student Kris Rhim (now a reporter for ESPN), Dobrow co-hosted a podcast called “Liberty, Justice, and Ball” on the intersection of basketball and social justice. Sponsored by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the podcast included interviews with basketball legends from Jerry West to Tamika Catchings. Dobrow’s second podcast, “The Heroes of St. Augustine,” will be released in the summer of 2026.

Some of the Publications Martin Has Written For ...

Teaching & Academic Work

Martin is a Professor of Communications at Springfield College, where he has received the institution’s highest teaching honor: Distinguished Professor of Humanics. He has also been honored as the New England Journalism Educator of the Year.

His courses connect historical context with contemporary journalistic practice, challenging students to understand how media shapes our understanding of critical societal issues. He has taken students on immersive spring break trips to civil rights battlegrounds in the South, including St. Augustine, Florida, where they met veterans of the movement from 1963-64, the subject of Original City, Original Sin. Another trip went to Alabama, including stops at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and the Legacy Museum in Montgomery. A third trip to Washington, D.C. included visits to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Dobrow’s teaching philosophy emphasizes deep reporting, ethical responsibility, attention to forgotten voices, and the understanding that the best journalism illuminates complexity rather than simplifying it. Many of his former students have gone on to careers in journalism at places ranging from community newspapers to ESPN and The Athletic.

The gallery below shows a smattering of his academic experiences, including recent student trips that explore the themes of his courses.

Awards & Recognition

National Journalism Awards

Best American Sports Writing, Honored six times for stories considered among the best in the country in annual anthology:
- 2019 edition (“Hoops, Hijabs, Heartbreak, and Hope: Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir comes home with a message,” masslive.com, April 17, 2018):
- 2010 edition (“Covered in Glory,” The Boston Globe, February 8, 2009)
- 2006 edition (“The Mias Touch,” Hampshire Life, August 19 and 26, 2005)
- 2001 edition (“Getting the Call,” Sport, July, 2000)
- 1996 edition (“The Passing of a Rivalry,” Daily Hampshire Gazette, November 9, 1995)
- 1993 edition (“0 and 15,” Hampshire Life, December 4, 1992)
United States Basketball Writers Association
- 2012-13, Best Column, 2nd place
- 2009-10, Best Magazine Length Feature, 1st place
- 2007-08, Best Magazine Length Feature, 1st place
Associated Press Sports Editors
- 1994, Column writing, first place (under 50,000 circulation)