“In Texas, football is king,” Rob Fink writes, “so it provides a prominent window on Texas culture.” In Football at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Texas, Fink opens this window to afford readers an engaging view of not only the sport and its impact on African Americans in Texas, but also a better and more nuanced perception of the African American community, its aspirations, and its self-understandings from Reconstruction to the present. This book focuses on crucial themes of civil rights, personal and group identity, racial pride, and socio-cultural empowerment. Although others have examined specific institutions, time periods, and rivalries in black college football, this book is the first to feature a broad narrative encompassing an entire state. This wide field of play affords the opportunity to explore the motivations and contexts for establishing football teams at historically black colleges and universities; the institutional and community purposes served by athletic programs; and how these efforts changed over time in response to changes in sport, higher education, and society. Fink traces the rise of the sport at HBCUs in Texas and the ways it came to symbolize and focus the aspirations of the African American community. He chronicles its decline, ironically due in part to the gains of the civil rights movement and the subsequent integration of black athletes into previously white institutions. Finally, he shows how HBCUs in Texas have survived in the twenty-first century by concentrating on balanced athletic budgets and a carefully honed appeal to traditional rivalries and constituencies.

Telling an inspiring, largely unknown story, Thursday Night Lights recounts how African American high school football programs produced championship teams and outstanding players during the Jim Crow era.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are valuable institutions that provide intellectual domains for racial uplift, racial refuge, and cultural empowerment within a continually polarized nation. Today’s current racial climate reminds us of the historical context that gave birth to HBCUs and segregated athletic experiences. While the sporting life at HBCUs is an integral part of these institutions’ mission, there is a dearth of research about HBCU athletics. In The Athletic Experience at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Past, Present, and Persistence, leading scholars from across the nation present a holistic examination of the integral role sports have played at HBCUs. Chapters in this volume cover a range of topics, from HBCU Football Classics to economics. It begins with a historical overview of HBCUs and the early sporting life before delving into the experiences of today’s male and female student-athletes—including the unique perspectives of athletes who transferred from historically White colleges and universities to HBCUs. Other chapters examine economic issues at HBCUs, such as the financial viability of their athletic departments in the context of the larger NCAA economic framework, and recommendations for the future of HBCU athletics to restore both academic and athletic excellence at these institutions. An important addition to the existing literature on race in contemporary society, this volume provides a narrative of the Black experience from the historical origins of educating Blacks, their early athletic experiences, and the current state of athletics at HBCUs. The Athletic Experience at Historically Black Colleges and Universities is a significant contribution to the debate on college athletics and higher education, in general, and athletics at HBCUs, specifically. It is a must-read for sport studies scholars and students, sport management practitioners, and sport enthusiasts of the inter-workings of athletics and the HBCU experience.

Black college football began during the nadir of African American life after the Civil War. The first game occurred in 1892, a little less than four years before the Supreme Court ruled segregation legal in Plessy v. Ferguson. In spite of Jim Crow segregation, Black colleges produced some of the best football programs in the country. They mentored young men who became teachers, preachers, lawyers, and doctors--not to mention many other professions--and transformed Black communities. But when higher education was integrated, the programs faced existential challenges as predominately white institutions steadily set about recruiting their student athletes and hiring their coaches. Blood, Sweat, and Tears explores the legacy of Black college football, with Florida A&M's Jake Gaither as its central character, one of the most successful coaches in its history. A paradoxical figure, Gaither led one of the most respected Black college football programs, yet many questioned his loyalties during the height of the civil rights movement. Among the first broad-based histories of Black college athletics, Derrick E. White's sweeping story complicates the heroic narrative of integration and grapples with the complexities and contradictions of one of the most important sources of Black pride in the twentieth century.

The history of black high school football in segregated Texas: “Though this book is long overdue, it is also right on time.” —Texas Observer At a time when “Friday night lights” shone only on white high school football games, African American teams across Texas burned up the gridiron on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Temple Dunbar, Austin Anderson, and other segregated high schools in the Prairie View Interscholastic League—the African American counterpart of the University Interscholastic League, which excluded black schools from membership until 1967—created an exciting brand of football that produced hundreds of outstanding players, many of whom became college All-Americans, All-Pros, and Pro Football Hall of Famers, including NFL greats such as “Mean” Joe Green, Otis Taylor, Dick “Night Train” Lane, Ken Houston, and Bubba Smith. Thursday Night Lights tells the inspiring, largely unknown story of African American high school football in Texas. Drawing on interviews, newspaper stories, and memorabilia, Michael Hurd introduces the players, coaches, schools, and towns where African Americans built powerhouse football programs under the PVIL leadership. He covers fifty years of history, including championship seasons and legendary rivalries such as the annual Turkey Day Classic game between Houston schools Jack Yates and Phillis Wheatley, which drew standing-room-only crowds of up to 40,000. In telling this story, Hurd explains why the PVIL was necessary, traces its development, and shows how football offered a potent source of pride and ambition in the black community, helping black kids succeed both athletically and educationally in a racist society. “[A] groundbreaking book.” —Houston Chronicle “In America’s current Colin Kaepernick-inspired moment, with sports once again taking on a conspicuous role in debates about black citizenship and the persistence of white racism, this book is especially timely and important.” —Great Plains Quarterly

“What was it like for young black men growing up in a totally segregated environment and transitioning to an integrated one?” asks author Robert Jacobus in the preface to this collection of interviews. How did they get involved in sports? How did the facilities, both academic and athletic, compare to the white schools? What colleges recruited them out of high school? Searching for the answers to these and other questions, Jacobus interviewed some 250 former players, former coaches, and others who were personally involved in the racial integration of Texas public school and college athletic programs. Starting with Ben Kelly, the first African American to play for a college team in the former Confederacy when he walked on at then San Angelo College, and continuing with great players such as Jerry Levias, Ken Houston, Mel Renfro, Bubba Smith, and more, the players tell their stories in their own words. Each story is as varied as the players themselves. Some strongly uphold the necessity of integration for progress in society. Others, while understanding the need for integration, nevertheless mourn the passing of their segregated schools, remembering fondly the close-knit communities forged by the difficulties faced by both students and teachers. Interlaced with historical context and abundantly illustrated, the first-person accounts presented in Black Man in the Huddle form an important and lasting record of the thoughts, struggles, successes, and experiences of young men on the front lines of desegregation in Texas schools and athletic programs. By capturing these stories, Jacobus widens our perspective on the interactions between sport and American society during the momentous 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s.