Jim Sumner specializes in southern sports history. He is a columnist for Blue Devil Weekly, theacc.com, and Inside Carolina magazine. Sumner is a regular contributor to The ACC Handbook. He also has written for the ACC Area Sports Journal, Baseball America, Duke Magazine, Basketball America, Our State, Metro Magazine, and numerous other magazines and journals.

A North Carolina native, Sumner grew up in Robeson County. He graduated from Duke University in 1972 with a B.A. in American History. He received an M.A. in American History from North Carolina State University in 1976. Sumner was a public historian for the North Carolina Division of Archives and History from 1976 until his retirement in 2006, including a 14-year stint at the North Carolina Museum of History, where he helped establish and curate the permanent North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame exhibit. His scholarly articles have appeared in the Journal of Sport History, the North Carolina Historical Review, the Maryland Historical Magazine and Nine:A Journal of Baseball History, among others.

His books include "A History of Sports in North Carolina," "Separating the Men From the Boys: The First Half Century of the Carolina League" and "Tales From the Duke Blue Devils Hardwood."