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A behind-the-scenes look at Texas high school football
If you really like high school football, let me recommend one of the best books I’ve read on the subject.
Gray Levy, a former high school football coach in Nevada, spent five months in 2012 going behind the scenes with 11 successful Texas high school teams and offers rare insights into how and why they consistently win.
His new book, Big and Bright: Deep in the Heart of Texas High School Football (Taylor Trade Publishing, $27.95 hardcover), takes an in-depth look at football programs from different size schools in different parts of the state. He details how the coaches and players prepare for their upcoming games and focuses on the importance of administrative and community support.
The 11 programs profiled are: La Marque (near Galveston), Carthage (East Texas), Port Lavaca (Gulf Coast), Stamford, Abilene High, Throckmorton and Idalou (West Texas), Aledo and Cedar Hill (Metroplex), Round Rock Stony Point (near Austin), and Harlingen (Rio Grande Valley).
Throckmorton plays six-man football, Stamford and Idalou are smaller division programs, Carthage, Port Lavaca, La Marque and Aledo are mid-level divisions, and Abilene High, Stony Point, Cedar Hill and Harlingen play in what is now 6A.
Levy said he focused on Texas because “no one does high school football like Texas. I came because I’d become disillusioned with the changing priorities of public education and hoped to restore my faith.” In Texas, he found, “high schools are still the seat of community pride.”
After five months, 59 games, and 19,689 miles, Levy said he went back home convinced that Texas “has the best system of public school athletics in the country.”
However, he also found that “Texas is also the perfect example of what not to do when it comes to assessment and accountability. No other state has allowed assessment to overwhelm education like Texas. Teachers and administrators are effectively handcuffed into removing creativity or personal initiative from their curriculum.
“I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that the excellent condition of the state’s extra-curricular programs saves Texas from having the worst educational system in the country. I saw this in my 11 schools. They do well despite ridiculous state mandates precisely because those communities and schools believed in something beyond test scores.”
Big and Bright adds to a growing collection of very readable books about Texas high school football, most of them focusing on one specific school. The best known is Friday Night Lights, but here are some other favorites:
- Where Dreams Die Hard by Carlton Stowers, about a six-man team in tiny Penelope.
- Champion of the Barrio by Gaines Baty, about his father’s El Paso Bowie team in the 1950s.
- Twelve Mighty Orphans by Jim Dent, about the Fort Worth Masonic Home Mighty Mites in the 1930s.
- Remember Why You Play by David Thomas, about the Faith Christian School Lions in Grapevine.
- The Team of the Century by Al Pickett, about Abilene High in the 1950s.
- Texas High School Football Dynasties by Rick Sherrod, profiling teams that have won at least four state championships.
* * * * *
Glenn Dromgoole, co-author of 101 Essential Texas Books, has teamed up with Jay Moore to write a children’s picture book, Abilene A to Z, about the city’s history and culture – published fall 2015 by Abilene Christian University Press. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.
>> Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit
5th annual Dobie Dichos slated for Nov. 6 in Oakville
On Friday, Nov. 6, 2015, the 5th annual Dobie Dichos storytelling event will take place at the Historic Oakville Jailhouse Lodge in Oakville, Texas, from 6:00 to 9:30 p.m. The cost of meal and performance is $15; admission for the performance only is $10. Tickets go on sale in September
Presented by George West Storyfest Association, Inc., this event honors Live Oak County’s most famous son, J. Frank Dobie, to celebrate Dobie’s works and contributions to literature, folklore, and storytelling. >>READ MORE
Alfred A. Knopf
Hardcover, 978-0-385-35133-1 (also available as ebook and audiobook), 400 pgs., $28.95
October 6, 2015
“As I write this, I’m ending my sixth decade. A new cycle in my life is opening and old one is closing. I wish to look backward and forward all at once.”
A House of My Own: Stories from My Life by Sandra Cisneros is an autobiography of sorts, an assemblage of nonfiction pieces spanning the years 1984 through 2014. Cisneros has always written about borders: personal, political, cultural, sexual, spiritual, geographical; she has always written about identity; and she’s always been searching for her true home. “I’m gathering up my stray lambs…and herding them under one roof, not so much for the reader’s sake, but my own. Where are you, my little loves, and where have you gone? Who wrote these and why? I have a need to know, so that I can understand my life.”
IT'S TEXAS BOOK FESTIVAL WEEK!
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LONE STAR LISTENS interviews >> archive
Jeff Guinn on weaving the past into fiction and nonfiction
Jeff Guinn, whose newest book launched last week and who will be a featured author at the 2015 Texas Book Festival, has written about everyone from Santa Claus to Charles Manson—literally. And it’s his sense of the literal in historical fiction that has created such a huge following and a fan base for the Fort Worth writer. Known for his meticulous and extensive research, Guinn often debunks historic myths in his novels. His latest, Buffalo Trail: A Novel of the American West (Putnam, 2015), is sure to attract Texas readers and discussion with its retelling of the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. Guinn took time from launching his new book to chat via email.
LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Jeff, you are a self-described military brat who grew up mostly in Italy, Germany, and England, but you spent much of your adulthood in Fort Worth, Texas. In the course of these interviews we’ve run across many Texas authors who hail from Fort Worth—Gary Cartwright, Sandra Brown, Dan Jenkins, among others. It seems to be fertile ground for writers. How has living in Fort Worth informed your writing?
JEFF GUINN: You can't live in the same city as Dan Jenkins and Sandra Brown, meet and talk with them, and not learn a great deal about effective storytelling. Beyond that, one of my greatest advantages in living in Fort Worth was becoming books editor of the Star-Telegram. I spent years interacting with exceptional writers who were generous in describing their work habits and writing techniques. I tried to listen carefully. The drawback to living in Fort Worth is that, with Dan and Sandra also here, I can never rise higher than #3 local author. >>READ MORE
Bookish Texas event highlights 10.16.2015
>> GO this week Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor
HOUSTON Mon., Oct. 19 Brazos Bookstore, An Evening of Poetry: Nick Flynn, Rachel Eliza Griffiths & Gregory Pardlo, 7PM
Brazos Bookstore, An Evening of Poetry: Nick Flynn, Rachel Eliza Griffiths & Gregory Pardlo, 7PM
IRVING Mon., Oct. 19 Irving Public Library - South, Middle Grade Mania with four children's authors: Polly Holyoke, Jennifer Ziegler, Jeramey Kraatz, & Kate Hannigan, 7PM
Irving Public Library - South, Middle Grade Mania with four children's authors: Polly Holyoke (The Neptune Challenge), Jennifer Ziegler (Revenge of the Angels), Jeramey Kraatz (The Cloak Society) & Kate Hannigan (The Detective's Assistant), 7PM
AUSTIN Tues., Oct. 20, BookPeople, musician ELVIS COSTELLO in conversation with Evan Smith about Costello's new book, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, 7PM
BookPeople, Grammy Award-Winning Musician ELVIS COSTELLO in conversation with Evan Smith about Costello's new book, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, 7PM
WICHITA FALLS Tues., Oct. 20, Hastings, Dr Ben Carson will sign A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties, 7:30PM
Hastings Entertainment, Dr Ben Carson will sign A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties, 7:30PM
SAN ANTONIO Thurs., Oct. 22, San Antonio College, Canto Mundo Poetry Reading and Reception with Texas State Poet Laureate Carmen Tafolla and San Antonio Poet Laureate Laurie Ann Guerrero, 6:30PM
San Antonio College, Canto Mundo Poetry Reading and Reception with Texas State Poet Laureate Carmen Tafolla and San Antonio Poet Laureate Laurie Ann Guerrero, 6:30PM
GALVESTON Sun., Oct. 25, 1892 Bishop's Place, Kenneth Hafertepe lectures from and signs A Guide to the Historic Buildings of Fredericksburg and Gillespie County, 1PM
The many faces of Texas Book Festival 2015
Click here to view a full slide show of Saturday's activities
Texas poets featured in sessions Saturday, Sunday afternoons sponsored by Texas Institute of Letters
Poetry readings by the poets laureate and award-winning poets of Texas will be held in Austin Friday, Oct. 17, and Sat., Oct. 18 from 1 to 3 p.m., Capitol Ext. Room E1.016, as part of the Texas Book Festival. These readings are open to the public and are sponsored by The Texas Institute of Letters.
Hosted by Kurt Heinzelman of the University of Texas at Austin, the sessions will take place Sat., Oct. 17, and Sun., Oct. 18 from, 1 to 3 pm each day in Capitol Ext. Rm. E1.016 and are open to the public. The lineup of readers is as follows: >>READ MORE
Highland Park presents Sinatra biographer Kaplan in Authors LIVE! Oct. 29
The Friends of the Highland Park Library, the Highland Park United Methodist Church, and the Friends of the SMU Libraries will host James Kaplan in an Authors LIVE! program 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29 at Wesley Hall at Dallas's HPUMC.
Kaplan’s new biography, Sinatra: The Chairman, will be signed and available for purchase before and after the program. The 7 p.m. program is free and open to the public. >>READ MORE
Bestselling author 
Lisa Wingate on The Sea Keeper’s Daughters and the Huckleberry Report
Lisa Wingate, bestselling author of 25 books, talks about her latest novel, The Sea Keeper’s Daughters, and publishing mainstream and Christian fiction. >> LISTEN NOW (mp3)
Christy nominee Allison Pittman and the shifting sands of a writing career
Alison Pittman, author of 13 Christian novels, three of which have been Christy nominees, talks about her latest novel, On Shifting Sand.
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Texas Is Chili Country by Judy Alter
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Deadlock by DiAnn Mills
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CONTINUING ON TOUR: FICTION
Sex As a Political Condition: A Border Novel
by Carlos Nicolás Flores
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NOW ON TOUR: WESTERN HISTORY
Finding the Great Western Trail
by Sylvia Gann Mahoney
Oct 15 Books and Broomsticks Promo
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Oct 19 All For the Love of the Word
Oct 20 Blogging for the Love of Authors and Their Books promo
Oct 21 Missus Gonzo Guest Post or Promo
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Oct 29 A Novel Reality Author Q&A
RECENTLY ON TOUR: FICTION
Stillwater by Melissa Lenhardt
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Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
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I Hate Pinatas: Surviving Life's Unexpected Surprises by Heather Maloy
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