Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole

9.4.16    Books focus on high school football in Texas

High school football in Texas is the subject of two new books by Texas authors, and a third is coming soon.

Waco writer Chad S. Conine, who has been covering high school football for nearly twenty years, has written The Republic of Football: Legends of the Texas High School Game (University of Texas Press, $24.95 hardcover), an excellent collection of forty-one stories about some of the most exciting games involving some of the sport’s biggest names — players and coaches.

The teams he covers range from large urban and suburban high schools like Katy, Austin Westlake, Galena Park North Shore, and Southlake Carroll to small towns Hamlin, Tuscola, Idalou, Rockport, and Big Sandy. In interviews with high school stars who went on to play college and professional football, Conine found them always eager to remember their high school teams, coaches, teammates and experiences.

Stories focus on legendary coaches like Art Briles, Hayden Fry, Grant Teaff, Gordon Wood, Lovie Smith, Jimmy Keeling, and Spike Dykes and players like Colt McCoy, Case Keenum, LaDanian Tomlinson, Dat Nguyen, Drew Brees, and Adrian Peterson.

If you enjoy high school football, you’ll find plenty of good reading in these 244 pages, plus Conine offers a list of other recommended books on the subject.

Conine will talk about his book during the West Texas Book Festival at noon Friday, Sept. 23, at the Abilene Public Library. The session is free and open to the public. Optional lunch is available for $5. For more on the festival, go to abilenetx.com/apl.

Winning coach: G. A. Moore holds the record, at least for now, as the winningest Texas high school football coach ever. His record could be broken this year or next by Phil Danaher of Corpus Christi Calallen High School. Moore set the mark — 429 wins, 97 losses, 9 ties, 8 state championships — in a forty-five-year career, most of it at Celina and Pilot Point, northeast of Dallas.

A new authorized biography of Moore, Beyond Just Win by Ed Housewright (Blue River Press, $22.99 hardcover), tells the coach’s story not only on the field but off, with numerous testimonials from players, assistant coaches, parents and others he influenced over the years. Moore demanded perfection from himself and his players, and his teams consistently produced winning records. Celina in 2001 broke the consecutive game win streak of forty-nine previously held by the Chuck Moser–coached Abilene High Eagles in the 1950s.

“Winning coaches,” Housewright notes, “sometimes have a dark side. They may have a massive ego, a mean streak, or a dismissive attitude toward others. Moore has none of those. He’s inspired numerous former players to follow his footsteps into coaching. He became a mentor, a father figure, and a friend to two generations of players. Molding boys into men of character — that was G. A. Moore’s real legacy as a coach.”

Since retiring, he has devoted himself to his family’s ranch. A year ago Moore (who once quit coaching to enter seminary) accepted the pastorate of the nearby country Baptist church in which he was baptized.  The sign out front notes that the pastor is “Coach G. A. Moore.”

Coming soon: Another book on Texas football isn’t out yet but will be soon, and I’ll be writing about it in a few weeks — Nick Eatman’s Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas: A Year in the Life of Lone Star Football, From High School to College to the Cowboys(Dey Street Books, $26.99 hardcover).

Glenn Dromgoole’s latest book is More Civility, Please. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.