A DREAM TOO BIG (PDF)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Date: April 18, 2019 Contact: Pamela McClure, McClure Muntsinger PR [email protected] (615) 294-5073 A DREAM TOO BIG CAYLIN MOORE, Rhodes Scholar & TCU Football Player, Shares His Improbable Journey from Compton to Oxford “I dreamed dreams which were so big that without divine intervention they were destined to fail. They were all dreams too big. This is the story of how they came true.” Nashville, TN — Caylin Louis Moore grew up in Compton. He recalls his first schoolyard conversation with other boys: they each imagined what it would be like when they went to prison. Not if, but when. The triple threat of crime, incarceration and the reality of low expectations had warped the dreams of the next generation. But the dominant narrative didn’t prevent Caylin Moore from chasing hope and dreaming big. At age 24, Caylin Moore is forging a new legacy for his family, for Compton students, and for all children deprived of hope in downtrodden communities Caylin Moore is a Rhodes Scholar and speaker, a husband and father, and a published author. Caylin’s first book, A Dream Too Big: The Story of an Improbable Journey from Compton to Oxford (Nelson Books, June 2019), recounts his exodus from one of the most impoverished, gang-infested communities in the United States to the elite spires of Oxford, England. Caylin Moore describes how he skirted the gangs and violence of Compton by embracing his mother’s steely faith in God and the hope offered by education. Football also became a saving grace, through the Snoop Youth Football League. In spite of constant challenges, including constant hunger, deprivation and the threat of gang activity, Caylin excelled in the classroom and on the field. He grasped every opportunity to learn and was especially impacted by black men who gave their time to football coaching, classroom teaching and business mentoring. Caylin would eventually apply to 45 colleges and get accepted into 36. He chased scholarships to cover tuition and landed a football opportunity at Marist College. Additional scholarships provided for a summer Fulbright scholarship at the University of Bristol and a public policy fellowship at Princeton University. He finished his football career at Texas Christian University (NCAA Division 1) where he founded a student organization (SPARK) to bring college athletes into under-served classrooms as inspirational speakers, mentors and positive role models. Caylin was named a 2017 Rhodes Scholar just before graduating TCU with a degree in Economics. He married Paola the summer after graduation and they honeymooned in Oxford, England. Today Caylin is an accomplished scholar, a youth mentor, a devoted husband and a new father. Applying to doctoral programs in the fall, he aspires to be a professor and contribute scholarship to the field of urban sociology. -more- PO Box 141000 Nashville TN, 37214 tel: 800.251.4000 web: www.thomasnelson.com  A Dream Too Big / 2 Caylin Moore’s inspirational story will help readers to:  Dream Bigger: “I didn’t start out with the goal of becoming a Rhodes Scholar. As a kid, I didn’t even know what a Rhodes Scholar was. If I had known, I would have seen it as most people around me did: a dream too big for a kid from Compton. But that wouldn’t have stopped me from dreaming it.”  Chase Hope: “You can get by without food. You can survive poverty. It is only when you give up hope that you will be beaten . . . I chased hope all the way to school and brought it home again. I put hope into every pass I threw as I practiced perfect spirals in the streets. Hope was as essential to me as air.”  Listen to Your Mom: “Neither violence nor poverty would quell my mom’s desire for a better life for her children. She told us, ‘We may live in the hood, but that does not mean that the hood has to live in us.’”  Forgive Your Dad: “The idea of my father had become a test of faith for me. God had put it in my heart that I couldn’t just talk about forgiveness. I wrote to my father . . . He had found God behind bars, and his letters were written by a different man than the one I had known as a little kid.”  Trust God: “My faith sustained me through tough times when no person could or would. Sometimes, in the worst moments, I felt like God was the only one who saw or heard me . . . every Sunday I would walk the two miles to the closest church . . . I was thirsty for my faith, for that living water, so I walked.”  Stay Humble: “Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures’ . . . It felt like he was speaking over the span of history, right to me. If my lot was to be a janitor at this moment, then so be it. I would be the best janitor Marist College had ever seen.”  Pay it forward: “I wanted to leverage the discipline I had gained from academics and athletics, my unflinching faith in God, and the support of my family and community. Those three tools had been threads in my life as long as I could remember . . . I knew I’d need every tool I could grab if I was going to be an agent of change, someone who could switch up the narrative of Compton and places like it.” Nelson Books is supporting the launch of A Dream Too Big with a national publicity campaign, digital advertising, and social media promotions. More details at www.ADreamTooBigBook.com. ### Caylin Moore is currently an M.Sc. Latin American Studies 2019 Candidate at the University of Oxford. Caylin and Paola Moore have been married almost two years and currently live in Austin, Texas, with their baby daughter Mia. Thomas Nelson, part of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc., is a world- leading provider of Christian content and has been providing readers with quality inspirational product for more than 200 years. The publishing group provides multiple formats of award-winning Bibles, books, gift books, cookbooks, curriculum and digital content, with distribution of its products in more than 100 countries. For more information, visit www.thomasnelson.com. A Dream Too Big: The Story of an Improbable Journey from Compton to Oxford By Caylin Louis Moore Available from Nelson Books, June 4, 2019 www.ADreamTooBigBook.com PRICE: U.S. $24.99 FORMAT: Hardcover PAGES: 274 ISBN: 9781400209910 CATEGORY: Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs CONTACT: Pamela McClure, McClure Muntsinger Public Relations [email protected] 615-294-5073