Bum Phillips

Bum Phillips
Author: Bum Phillips
Publisher: Lucid Books
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2010-08-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1935909029

REMEMBER: BUM IS A NICKNAME, NOT A DESCRIPTION. Bum Phillips became head coach of the National Football League's Houston Oilers in 1975. He retired from the league 10 years later as one of its most colorful characters of all time. While fans of Luv Ya Blue remember Phillips for his cowboy hat and boots, for his down-home Texas yarns, most people don't know he survived deadly battles during World War II, stumbled almost accidentally into football and later gave his life, during a trip to prison, to Jesus Christ. The book chronicles his transformation from a beer-drinking cowboy, U.S. Marine and football coach to a devoted son of God. The complete story of a pro football icon. In it, you will learn: - Behind-the-scenes stories from his favorite NFL times. - How a small-town man ascended the ranks of high school, college and pro football. - Gripping accounts of his time during World War II. - His struggle to balance family life with NFL demands. - How a trip to prison catapulted this good ol' boy into a faithful Christian. "He is a Bum - only in name. One of the most generous, loyal, and caring individuals I have ever known in sport. He balanced leadership and friendship better than anyone who ever stood on an NFL sideline. We can all learn from him and his remarkable life." Jim Nantz, Emmy Award-winning CBS Sports broadcaster "People go through life never having the chance to experience special times and special people. I was lucky to have had the opportunity to share all of this with Bum Phillips and I feel blessed having done so. It is an honor to have shared my life with him." Dan Pastorini, Former quarterback of the Houston Oilers "Bum Phillips' book ... will be a blessing to you. He was a great football coach as well as a mentor to hundreds of football players. To me, his greatest accomplishment is the fact that he found the Lord Jesus as his Saviour at age 76. God helped him to succeed in his career because His gracious Hand was upon him. I love you, Debbie and Bum, and I salute you!" Dodie Osteen, Co-Founder of Houston's Lakewood Church "When you read this book, it's like being on the sideline with Bum Phillips, who coaches you up as only he can do. I love my coach and you will, too." Mike Barber, Pro Claim founder and former tight end for the Houston Oilers "This book blew me away! I am the No. 1 fan of Luv ya Blue and Bum Phillips, and I'm still floored with the Bum I never knew: Marine Hero, Coach, Southern Gentleman, Family Man! Add to the list: Born Again. And it shows. WOW DOES IT SHOW! It will leave you in awe of the real Coach Phillips. Three words sum up the impact and scope of this book: The Lord, The Love, The Legacy. It's much, much more than just one great read." Dr. John Bisagno, Paster Emeritus of First Baptist Houston

Sports and the Racial Divide

Sports and the Racial Divide
Author: Michael E. Lomax
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2011-03-11
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1617030465

With essays by Ron Briley, Michael Ezra, Sarah K. Fields, Billy Hawkins, Jorge Iber, Kurt Kemper, Michael E. Lomax, Samuel O. Regalado, Richard Santillan, and Maureen Smith This anthology explores the intersection of race, ethnicity, and sports and analyzes the forces that shaped the African American and Latino sports experience in post-World War II America. Contributors reveal that sports often reinforced dominant ideas about race and racial supremacy but that at other times sports became a platform for addressing racial and social injustices. The African American sports experience represented the continuation of the ideas of Black Nationalism—racial solidarity, black empowerment, and a determination to fight against white racism. Three of the essayists discuss the protest at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. In football, baseball, basketball, boxing, and track and field, African American athletes moved toward a position of group strength, establishing their own values and simultaneously rejecting the cultural norms of whites. Among Latinos, athletic achievement inspired community celebrations and became a way to express pride in ethnic and religious heritages as well as a diversion from the work week. Sports was a means by which leadership and survival tactics were developed and used in the political arena and in the fight for justice.

The Kids Got It Right

The Kids Got It Right
Author: Jim Dent
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2013-08-20
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1250017890

New York Times bestselling author Jim Dent pens the compelling story of how a black and white player came together to break the color barrier in Texas football in 1965. Jerry LeVias and Bill Bradley bonded as friends at the Big 33 high school all-star game, producing a dramatic finish that fans still talk about. Jim Dent takes the reader to the heart of Texas football with the incredible story of how two young men broke the chain of racism that had existed for more than half a century. In 1965, black and white players barely mixed in Texas. That summer, Jerry LeVias and Bill Bradley came together at the Big 33 game in Hershey, Pennsylvania. When no one else would room with LeVias, Bradley stepped forward. The two became the closest of friends and the best of teammates. LeVias called Bradley "my blue-eyed soul brother.'' Big-hearted, gregarious, and free-spirited, Bradley looked out for LeVias – one of three black players on the team. The Texas team came to Hershey with a mandate to win. A year earlier, Texas had lost to the Pennsylvania all-stars 12-6 in the most significant defeat in the state's proud history. This was considered blasphemy in a place where football outranked religion. Texas coach Bobby Layne was mad-as-hell that he was forced to play with second stringers in '64. So he and assistant coach Doak Walker traveled to Austin and asked Texas governor John Connally to end the scheduling conflict with the in-state all-star game so he could suit up the best players. Layne also sought permission to recruit black players. After all, Texas was flush with black stars, some of whom would mature into the most notable players in the history of the National Football League. Layne's scheme never would have worked without Bradley and LeVias. Together—and with Layne's indomitable will to win—the two led their team proudly to face down the competition at Hershey Stadium. The Kids Got It Right is a moving story, reminiscent of Remember The Titans. Jim Dent once again brings readers to cheers and tears with a truly American tale of leadership, brotherhood, and good-ol' Texas-style football.

Slingin' Sam

Slingin' Sam
Author: Joe Holley
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2012-10-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0292745699

Dan Jenkins calls him “the greatest quarterback who ever lived, college or pro.” Slingin’ Sammy Baugh, who played for TCU and the Washington Redskins, single-handedly revolutionized the game of football. While the pros still wore leather helmets and played the game more like rugby, Baugh’s ability to throw the ball with rifle-like accuracy made the forward pass a strategic weapon, not a desperation heave. Like Babe Ruth, who changed the very perception of how baseball is played, Slingin’ Sam transformed the notion of offense in football and how much yardage can be gained through the air. As the first modern quarterback, Baugh led the Redskins to five title games and two NFL championships, while leading the league in passing six times—a record that endures to this day—and in punting four times. In 1943, the triple-threat Baugh also scored a triple crown when he led the league in passing, punting, and interceptions. Slingin’ Sam is the first major biography of this legendary quarterback, one of the first inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Joe Holley traces the whole arc of Baugh’s life (1914–2008), from his small-town Texas roots to his college ball success as an All-American at TCU, his brief flirtation with professional baseball, and his stellar career with the Washington Redskins (1937–1952), as well as his later career coaching the New York Titans and Houston Oilers and ranching in West Texas. Through Holley’s vivid descriptions of close-fought games, Baugh comes alive both as the consummate all-around athlete who could play every minute of every game, on both offense and defense, and as an all-around good guy.

Houston Cougars in the 1960s

Houston Cougars in the 1960s
Author: Robert D. Jacobus
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2015-11-18
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 162349348X

On January 20, 1968, the University of Houston Cougars upset the UCLA Bruins, ending a 47-game winning streak. Billed as the “Game of the Century,” the defeat of the UCLA hoopsters was witnessed by 52,693 fans and a national television audience—the first-ever regular-season game broadcast nationally. But the game would never have happened if Houston coach Guy Lewis had not recruited two young black men from Louisiana in 1964: Don Chaney and Elvin Hayes. Despite facing hostility both at home and on the road, Chaney and Hayes led the Cougars basketball team to 32 straight victories. Similarly in Cougar football, coach Bill Yeoman recruited Warren McVea in 1964, and by 1967 McVea had helped the Houston gridiron program lead the nation in total offense. Houston Cougars in the 1960s features the first-person accounts of the players, the coaches, and others involved in the integration of collegiate athletics in Houston, telling the gripping story of the visionary coaches, the courageous athletes, and the committed supporters who blazed a trail not only for athletic success but also for racial equality in 1960s Houston.

Champion of the Barrio

Champion of the Barrio
Author: R. Gaines Baty
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2015-02-09
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1623492661

Buryl Baty (1924–1954) was a winning athlete, coach, builder of men, and an early pioneer in the fight against bigotry. In 1950, Baty became head football coach at Bowie High School in El Paso and quickly inspired his athletes, all Mexican Americans from the Segundo Barrio, with his winning ways and his personal stand against the era’s extreme, deep-seated bigotry—to which they were subjected. However, just as the team was in a position to win a third district title in 1954, they were jolted by an unthinkable tragedy that turned their world upside down. Later, as mature adults, these players realized that Coach Baty had helped mold them into honorable and successful men, and forty-four years after the coach’s death, they dedicated their high school stadium in his name. In 2013, Baty was inducted posthumously into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame. In this poignant memoir, R. Gaines Baty also describes his own journey to get to know his father. Coach Baty’s life story is portrayed from the perspectives of nearly one hundred individuals who knew him, in addition to many documented facts and news reports.

The Sports Revolution

The Sports Revolution
Author: Frank Andre Guridy
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2021-03-23
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1477321837

In the 1960s and 1970s, America experienced a sports revolution. New professional sports franchises and leagues were established, new stadiums were built, football and basketball grew in popularity, and the proliferation of television enabled people across the country to support their favorite teams and athletes from the comfort of their homes. At the same time, the civil rights and feminist movements were reshaping the nation, broadening the boundaries of social and political participation. The Sports Revolution tells how these forces came together in the Lone Star State. Tracing events from the end of Jim Crow to the 1980s, Frank Guridy chronicles the unlikely alliances that integrated professional and collegiate sports and launched women’s tennis. He explores the new forms of inclusion and exclusion that emerged during the era, including the role the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders played in defining womanhood in the age of second-wave feminism. Guridy explains how the sexual revolution, desegregation, and changing demographics played out both on and off the field as he recounts how the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers and how Mexican American fans and their support for the Spurs fostered a revival of professional basketball in San Antonio. Guridy argues that the catalysts for these changes were undone by the same forces of commercialization that set them in motion and reveals that, for better and for worse, Texas was at the center of America’s expanding political, economic, and emotional investments in sport.

The African Texans

The African Texans
Author: Alwyn Barr
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2004-02-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781585443505

Immigrants of African descent have come to Texas in waves—first as free blacks seeking economic and social opportunity under the Spanish and Mexican governments, then as enslaved people who came with settlers from the deep South. Then after the Civil War, a new wave of immigration began. In The African Texans, author Alwyn Barr considers each era, giving readers a clear sense of the challenges that faced African Texans and the social and cultural contributions that they have made in the Lone Star State. With wonderful photographs and first-hand accounts, this book expands readers’ understanding of African American history in Texas. Special features include · 59 illustrations · 12 biographical sketches · excerpts from newspaper articles · excerpts from court rulings The African Texans is part of a five-volume set from the Institute of Texan Cultures. The entire set, entitled Texans All, explores the social and cultural contributions made by five distinctive cultural groups that already existed in Texas prior to its statehood or that came to Texas in the early twentieth century: The Indian Texans, The Mexican Texans, The European Texans, The African Texans, and The Asian Texans.

Twentieth-century Texas

Twentieth-century Texas
Author: John Woodrow Storey
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
Total Pages: 487
Release: 2008
Genre: Texas
ISBN: 1574412450

A collection of fifteen essays which cover Indians, Mexican Americans, African Americans, women, religion, war on the homefront, music, literature, film, art, sports, philanthropy, education, the environment, and science and technology in twentieth-century Texas.

Lone Star Mind

Lone Star Mind
Author: Ty Cashion
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2018-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0806162074

There is the story the Lone Star State likes to tell about itself—and then there is the reality, a Texas past that bears little resemblance to the manly Anglo myth of Texas exceptionalism that maintains a firm grip on the state’s historical imagination. Lone Star Mind takes aim at this traditional narrative, holding both academic and lay historians accountable for the ways in which they craft the state’s story. A clear-sighted, far-reaching work of intellectual history, this book marshals a wide array of pertinent scholarship, analysis, and original ideas to point the way toward a new “usable past” that twenty-first-century Texans will find relevant. Ty Cashion fixes T. R. Fehrenbach’s Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans in his crosshairs in particular, laying bare the conceptual deficiencies of the romantic and mythic narrative the book has served to codify since its first publication in 1968. At the same time, Cashion explores the reasons why the collective efforts of university-trained scholars have failed to diminish the appeal of the state’s iconic popular culture, despite the fuller and more accurate record these historians have produced. Framing the search for a collective Texan identity in the context of a post-Christian age and the end of Anglo-male hegemony, Lone Star Mind illuminates the many historiographical issues besetting the study of American history that will resonate with scholars in other fields as well. Cashion proposes that a cultural history approach focusing on the self-interests of all Texans is capable of telling a more complete story—a story that captures present-day realities.