Kirjahaku

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.

When it comes to sports, Texas more than earns its bragging rights. The Lone Star State has produced championship teams and legendary athletes not only in football, baseball, and basketball, but in dozens of other sports as well. Texas Sports celebrates more than a century of achievements in a day-by-day record of the people and events-both unforgettable and little-known-that have made Texas a powerhouse in the world of sports.Chad S. Conine packs a wealth of sports facts and stories into 366 days. He ranges from firsts such as UT’s first football game (an 1893 win against Dallas University Football Club) to peak moments such as Earl Campbell running through defenders, Nolan Ryan throwing heat past baffled batters, and Babe Didrickson Zaharias winning the Western Open golf championship for the fourth time. Conine covers more than twenty-five sports and all levels from high school to professional, reminding us that if Texas had never seen a pigskin or a backboard, its sports legacy would still be secure. With a winning combination of victories and heartbreaks, men’s and women’s sports, and all regions of the state, Texas Sports is a must-read for all sports fans and trivia buffs.

The call came for Tommy Bowman unexpectedly and yet he followed with conviction. It happened at a time when revolution was coming to Southwest Conference football and basketball during the 1966-67 school year. John Westbrook, a Baylor walk-on, became the first African American to play in an SWC varsity football game in September of 1966. At SMU, Jerry LeVias carried the torch as the SWC's first Black scholarship football player and took the field for the Mustangs that season. By the end of the fall semester, TCU's James Cash became the SWC's first African American scholarship athlete to play in a varsity basketball game.In Tommy Bowman, Chad Conine, a Waco sportswriter, tells the story of Tommy Bowman's impact on not only Baylor basketball, but Baylor as a whole. Tommy Bowman quietly arrived at Baylor in 1966 for the fall semester. He found himself, almost by surprise, integrating the Baylor basketball team. Bowman had been recruited by Baylor basketball assistant coach Carroll Dawson to be a pioneer for the Bears--Baylor's first Black scholarship athlete. It was a case of a young man being thrust into a game-changing role. Dawson discovered Bowman by a chance encounter at a service station in East Texas. Both coach and player now describe it as God's providence. Bowman faced without flinching all the challenges of helping to break the race barrier in the SWC. With the help of his Baylor teammates, he excelled on the court and on campus.Now, more than fifty years later, Bowman's achievements have gained their rightful acclaim. He is a member of the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame and the Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame. Despite his own humble tendency to avoid the spotlight, Bowman's Bear teammates have ushered him forward as one of the program's heroes. They recognize how he answered the call and changed Baylor for the better.