In Texas, high school football is king. If pigskin passion is no less intense among college and professional fans, enthusiasm for the schoolboy sport is more democratically spread throughout towns and communities, small and large. Almost any young man can play if he's willing to pay the price, work hard, and bring a bit of local, regional, or statewide glory to his hometown. Stephenville High School is one among an elite group of Texas football schools that has achieved at the highest level. The traditional rivalry games against Dublin and Breckenridge in the 1920s through the 1940s have evolved into heavily attended matchups with seven-time state champion Brownwood and, most recently, three-time state champion Aledo. From Joe Brown and Jim Mobley's powerhouse teams of the 1930s to Mike Murphy's 1952 regional qualifying squad, the Yellow Jackets have contended with the best in Texas. With four state championships, Art Briles made the 1990s a "Decade of Dominance" for Stephenville High School. Yellow Jacket football fever remains alive and well, promising to remain so long into the indefinite future.

Since the first annual state football champion was crowned in 1920, Texas has never been the same. Today, millions of Texans gather in stadiums across the Lone Star State, eagerly awaiting that magical mid- to late-December moment when the season comes to its dramatic conclusion. Of the 391 high schools reaching the championship matchup, only a handful--26--have won the title four times or more, laying claim to the coveted moniker "dynasty." From Waco High School's fourth title win in 1927 to Stamford's fourth official win in 2012, writer and lifelong football enthusiast Rick Sherrod traces the "best of the best" in this pigskin empire across ninety-three action-packed seasons.

Ray Golarz paints a revealing pathway into the lives of a Depression era immigrant community. He takes the reader aboard a journey via the very early American game of football. Once aboard, the reader is introduced to a team of young semi-pro Polish football players, along with their friends, families, ethnic customs, and religious ways, then drawn into a community struggling to survive the Depression's challenges and maintain their unique identity in this newly-adopted country. This account has it all: football games filled with action, emotion, strategizing, and gritty determination. And like those who actually came to see the games, you will find it delightfully easy to walk along with family and friends, coming from all over their neighborhood, to stand or take a seat on a make-shift bench. Join in the singing of the National Anthem, agonize over plays gone wrong, and walk with them over to Wusic's gas station to gather and celebrate after game victories. Ah, but stick around. There's more. Before, during and between games and seasons, you can come to team meetings, share a Christmas Eve ethnic meal, and attend a Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. If you can wake up at two o'clock in the morning, you will be taken on a night trip to collect coal along the railroad tracks. Then in early morning, go off to Wusic's for coffee and a log in the pot-bellied stove. And you can get a close look at the Depression on a national level as you join Lefty who goes “on the bum” hitting the rails, driven by curiosity and want for food at home. Meet World War I vets on their way to Washington for promised bonuses, walk to Niagara Falls, and take a cot in a New York City mission.

On July 4, 1855, on the fringe of the Texas Cross Timbers frontier, John M. Stephen and George B. Erath completed the survey of the Stephenville city square. Stephenville quickly became a prosperous settlement and a center for cattle raising, cotton production, and most recently dairy production. Styled today as the City of Champions, Cowboy Capital of the World, and the Dairy Capital of Texas, Stephenville has a colorful 155-year history. The evolution from cattle ranching to dairy farming finds delightful expression on the original town square where Moo-laa life-size fiberglass Holstein milk cowcelebrates Stephenvilles agricultural achievements. The Ville has produced football heroes such as 1938 NFL Champion New York Giants fullback Hugh Wolfe and 2010 Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Kevin Kolb and rodeo champions Whit Keeney, Tuff Hedeman, and King of the Cowboys Ty Murray. Music celebrities Lee Roy Parnell, Johnny Duncan, Larry Joe Taylor, and Jewel have also called Stephenville home.

Baylor head coach Art Briles is one of the most highly regarded coaches in college football, and this biography delves far beyond his football success and acumen. It explains how, at the age of 20, Briles lost his parents in a tragic car accident as they were en route to one of his college games. The book relates how Briles, devastated by the loss of his role models, used the catastrophe as motivation to propel him toward the destination of his dreams. As the book elucidates in detail, Coach Briles has made a career of turning failing football programs around in both the high school and collegiate ranks. His latest accomplishments at Baylor University are also chronicled in this account of overcoming tragedy and turning personal loss into overwhelming success.

Anywhere football is played, Texas is the force to reckon with. Its powerhouse programs produce the best football players in America. In The Republic of Football, Chad S. Conine vividly captures Texas’s impact on the game with action-filled stories about legendary high school players, coaches, and teams from around the state and across seven decades. Drawing on dozens of interviews, Conine offers rare glimpses of the early days of some of football’s biggest stars. He reveals that some players took time to achieve greatness—LaDainian Tomlinson wasn’t even the featured running back on his high school team until a breakthrough game in his senior season vaulted him to the highest level of the sport—while others, like Colt McCoy, showed their first flashes of brilliance in middle school. In telling these and many other stories of players and coaches, including Hayden Fry, Spike Dykes, Bob McQueen, Lovie Smith, Art Briles, Lawrence Elkins, Warren McVea, Ray Rhodes, Dat Nguyen, Zach Thomas, Drew Brees, and Adrian Peterson, Conine spotlights the decisive moments when players caught fire and teams such as Celina, Southlake Carroll, and Converse Judson turned into Texas dynasties. Packed with never-before-told anecdotes, as well as fresh takes on the games everyone remembers, The Republic of Football is a must-read for all fans of Friday night lights.