From the innocent exuberance of high school football to the spectacle of the college game to the glitz of America's Team, the story of the importance of football to the state of Texas is told in this book. Trilogy takes readers behind the scenes to look at the night before the big game, the life of the star player and how football at any level is big business in Texas. The state's most popular entertainers, the Cowboys, are part of the focus of Trilogy.

In terms of books, Texas Football Trilogy could well become the Friday Night Lights of 1999. From the innocent exuberance of high school football to the spectacle of the college game to the glitz of America’s Team, the story of the importance of football to the state of Texas is told in this book. Trilogy takes readers behind the scenes to look at the night before the big game, the life of the star player and how football at any level is big business in Texas. The state’s most popular entertainers, the Cowboys, are part of the focus of Trilogy, which looks at the religion of football in Texas at the professional, college and high school levels. Texas Football Trilogy also chronicles a banner season for Texas A & M, including an inside look at the Aggies’ stunning upset of Nebraska, and a view of one of the state’s premier prep programs, Austin’s Westlake High School. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

With the popularity of Texas football across the country at its height, this account" "details the roots of the Longhorns' glory, their modern-day triumphs, and everything in between for the legions of Texas fans everywhere. The book goes back in time to the early years of Texas football and traces its footsteps to becoming a powerhouse on the college football scene, recounting the greatest moments in the team's lore and covering the intense rivalries with Oklahoma and Texas A&M.

When it comes to college football, there are teams and there are Texas teams. The University of Texas in Austin boasts one of the best, most celebrated football teams in the nation. This action-packed volume takes readers (and Longhorn fans) through the history of the team and highlights some fantastic players, coaches, and game moments. Includes exciting sidebars with bonus information.

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. The 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 (Temple Dunbar), Otis Taylor (Houston Worthing), Dick "Night Train" Lane (Austin Anderson), Ken Houston (Lufkin Dunbar), and Bubba Smith (Beaumont Charlton-Pollard). 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 (1920–1970) of high school football 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, making it the largest prep sports event in postwar America. 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.

For at least a century, across the United States, Mexican American athletes have actively participated in community-based, interscholastic, and professional sports. The people of the ranchos and the barrios have used sport for recreation, leisure, and community bonding. Until now, though, relatively few historians have focused on the sports participation of Latinos, including the numerically preponderant Mexican Americans. This volume gathers an important collection of such studies, arranged in rough chronological order, spanning the period from the late 1920s through the present. They survey and analyze sporting experiences and organizations, as well as their impact on communal and individual lives. Contributions spotlight diverse fields of athletic endeavor: baseball, football, soccer, boxing, track, and softball. Mexican Americans and Sports contributes to the emerging understanding of the value of sport to minority populations in communities throughout the United States. Those interested in sports history will benefit from the book's focus on under-studied Mexican American participation, and those interested in Mexican American history will welcome the insight into this aspect of the group's social history.

With three national championships, more than 80 All-American and nearly 800 victories, the University of Texas has a football history and tradition among the richest in the nation. This book offers a look at a small slice of that history and tradition, with updates on the lives of those who made it possible. Among these are: Johnny Treadwell, whose Now we've got 'em where we want 'em challenge became the emblem of the Darrell Royal teams of the early 1960s; former head coach David McWilliams, whose departure from the coaching ranks may have eventually helped to save his life; Duke Carlisle, the star of three crucial showdowns in a national championship season, now enjoying life in the oil business in Mississippi; Julius Whittier, UT's first black football letterman, who finished with two degrees and has been a successful Dallas attorney for 20 years: Ben Tompkins, who played baseball with Satchel Paige, spent 20 years as an NFL game official, and is still practicing law at 75; T Jones enshrined in the Hall of Honor at both UT and Texas Tech; Ben Procter, who held a UT receiving record for 40 years still lives in house he bought from Lyndon Johnson's sister, and is finishing up the second volume of a biography of William Randolph Hearst; Alan Lowry, who answers the gnawing question about whether he stepped out of bounds on the run that beat Alabama in the Cotton Bowl; James Saxton, the swift All-American who survived a near-fatal illness; Roosevelt Leaks, who after a lengthy NFL career still spends time on the family farm where he grew up; the Campbell twins, who as the sons of defensive coordinator Iron Mike Campbell, willed themselves into becoming starters on a nationalchampionship team; Randy Peschel, the man who caught Right 53 Veer Pass; James Street, the man who threw it; and former Outland winner Scott Appleton, who destroyed his life with alcohol and then rebuilt it, becoming a minister who touched countless lives before his death.