From the best players to the best coaches and some of the most legendary schools and teams in US history, Texas high school football has it all. In the state that made “Friday Night Lights” famous, High School Football in Texas takes an inside look at the state’s greatness in the sport, from the best players when they were in high school to those who’ve gone on to be stars as collegiate players or pros. It’s about record-setters, trend-setters, and some of the most inspirational families and people you’ll ever meet. Some of the players and coaches featured include Mean Joe Greene, Earl Campbell, Andy Dalton, Eric Dickerson, and many more! Covering several generations, this book presents high school football in a manner never done before. Some of the great stories featured recount how future Hall of Famer Drew Brees never got onto the field in his first high school football scrimmage and how Mean Joe Greene wanted to be a running back like Gale Sayers and Jim Brown. High School Football America founder Jeff Fisher mixes amazing anecdotes and interviews with the many who’ve experienced Texas high school football from every imaginable angle.

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.

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.

Nearly half of all American high school students participate in sports teams. With a total of 7.6 million participants as of 2008, this makes the high school sports program in America the largest organized sports program in the world. Pruter’s work traces the history of high school sports from the student-led athletic clubs of the 1800s through to the establishment of educator control of high school sports under a national federation by the 1930s. Pruter’s research serves not only to highlight this rich history but also to provide new perspectives on how high school sports became the arena by which Americans fought for some of the most contentious issues in society, such as race, immigration and Americanization, gender roles, religious conflict, the role of the military in democracy, and the commercial exploitation of our youth.

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.

Sports Crazy: How Sports Are Sabotaging American Schools exposes the excesses of middle and high school sports and the detrimental effects our sports obsession has on American education. Institutions are increasingly emulating college and professional sports models and losing sight of a host of educational and health goals. Steven J. Overman describes how this agenda is driven largely by partisan fans and parents of athletes who exert an inordinate influence on school priorities, and he explains how and why school administrators shockingly and consistently capitulate to these demands. The author underscores the incongruity of public schools involved in an entertainment business and the effects this diversion has on academic integrity, learning, life experience, and overall educational outcomes. Overman examines out-of-control school sports within the context of a school’s educational mission and curriculum, with telling reference to impacts on physical education. He explores as well the outsized place of interscholastic sports beyond the classroom and scrutinizes the distorted relationship between intramural or recreational sports and elitist, varsity athletics. Overman’s chapter on tackle football explains many reasons why this sport should be eliminated from the school extracurriculum and replaced by flag or touch football. Overman presents a brief history of interscholastic sports, and he compares and contrasts the American experience of school-sponsored sport to the European model of community-based clubs. Which approach better serves students? Overman recommends reforms in the context of a radical proposal to phase out interscholastic sports in favor of an intramural or club model. This approach would alleviate such problems as elitism and gender bias and reign in hypercompetitiveness while freeing schools to educate students rather than provide public entertainment.

"Wishart and the staff of the Center for Great Plains Studies have compiled a wide-ranging (pun intended) encyclopedia of this important region. Their objective was to 'give definition to a region that has traditionally been poorly defined,' and they have

The year 1964 was momentous for civil rights as Congress passed the Twenty-fourth Amendment and Texas's own Lyndon B. Johnson unveiled his plan for the Great Society. That same year, the Plano school district integrated, setting an example for the state and nation. The tightknit community banded together through a language fluent to everyone--football. The Wildcats had few winning seasons and no state titles at that time, but with hard work and a trailblazing spirit, coaches Tom Gray and John Clark led the integrated team all the way to state championship victory in 1965. The Plano Conservancy for Historic Preservation, Inc. presents the inspiring story of the Wildcat fight for the title that made Plano a better place to live.

“What difference does it make?”, the corner-stone quote of Hillary Clinton preparing for an election. That same statement can be applied today when coaches want instant gratification bypassing basic fundamentals of the sport they are coaching. Learning the fundamentals of any sport is a long process and doesn’t happen over-night. High school coaches that stay in high school, teach basic fundamentals helping everyone understand that there is no shortcut to success is what this book is about. Is there any sports fan who didn’t have a high school coach that make a difference in their life? This book covers all sports in the Texas Panhandle/Plains region governed by the UIL. There is a section for each sport showing the history of high school state championships between this area and other regions. What makes this book different is the legendary coaches are nominated by their peers and is about high school coaches only.

Back to the start and behind the scenes on the Longhorns recruiting trail The University of Texas boasts one of the nation's most storied football programs, and the recruiting acumen of coaches like Darrell Royal and Mack Brown plays a major role in that. The Road to Texas is a wild ride into the competitive world of college football recruiting, revealing how Texas's greatest players found their way to Austin. Mike Roach takes fans back to the start and behind the scenes, showing that the path to becoming a Longhorn is not always a straight and narrow one.