Thursday Night Lights
The Story of Black High School Football in Texas
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Texas Press
Published:1st Feb '19
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
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.
Hurd tells the PVIL story with conviction, attention to detail, and great affection. * Abilene Reporter-News *
[Hurd has] seen a lot. And he understands the connections between sports, especially football, and other, often riven cultural expressions of our state. * Austin American-Statesman *
Though this book is long overdue, it is also right on time. We are currently having a collective cultural discussion about whose history gets told, how we choose whose stories matter, and which historical characters get cast, quite literally, in stone or metal to be celebrated for years to come. Hurd shows that the stories we tell ourselves about the history of football in Texas are woefully incomplete. * Texas Observer *
Thursday Night Lights clearly succeeds in reviving the memory of black high school football in Texas and honoring its legacy. * Southwestern Historical Quarterly *
Hurd's work should prove essential to those interested in examining the racial politics of sports at the high school level, college recruitment, and desegregation. * Journal of Sport History *
In America's current Colin Kaepernick-inspired moment, with sports once again taking on a conspicuous role in debates about black citizenship and the persistence of white racism, this book is especially timely and important. * Great Plains Quarterly *
Hurd's book carefully proves how…football became a potent source of pride and ambition in the black community, helping black students succeed both athletically and educationally in a racist society. * Temple Daily-Telegram *
[A] fascinating and beautifully-written homage to black high school football in Texas…a badly needed corrective to the history of high school football in Texas. * Central Texas Studies *
[A] groundbreaking book. * Houston Chronicle *
ISBN: 9781477318300
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 15mm
Weight: 340g
256 pages