by John Maher and yes, Kirk uh, cough, Bohls. My wife was on one of her "anti-clutter" campaigns which many of you may be familiar with. You know, everything she thinks is unimportant ( to her of course ) is in dire peril of loss to the trash can. I say that because when we built the place I told her that " I don't care how you build the house but that garage is MY territory". All I need is a place to lay my head. But alas, lately there has been some severe " ENCROACHMENT" into the garage. Thats a football term of course. Well, I had read this book back in the very early ninties and had been looking for it. Thankfully I was able to rescue it before it went into the dumpster. I read it again cover to cover it gave me a new found admiration for Mack Brown, what he has accomplished and the state of the program now and where its headed. Since I read this the first time I have got to meet many Texas football players as well as David McWilliams and Fred Ackers. That made the read even better the second time. Its first edition came out in 1991 and the publisher was the St. Martins Press. The cover sports a phrase " Trouble And Triumph Deep in the Heart of 3 Decades of Texas Football". And thats a pretty good description of whats inside. It is a well done history of everything from the end of Ed Price and start of the DKR regime, all the way to the end of David McWilliams and start of John Mackovics tenure. It was very hard to put down.
You are right. That is a great read. That is the book that actually started my collection of books on Texas and Texas Athletics. It numbers around 200 right now. Might I also recommend: Horns, Hogs & Nixon Coming Courage Beyond The Game One Heartbeat I One Heartbeat II and for fun...Univ. of Texas Football Vault. For a view from the other side, anti-Longhorn football, and written by a former player, try Meat on the Hoof.
1990 was my junior year in college I remember reading that book when it came out and basically reliving that year all over again. It is a great read and one I redo every three or four years. I would also highly recommend Horns Hogs and Nixon coming as maybe the best football related book about Texas that i have seen out there.
A MAN'S GARAGE IS HIS CASTLE... A POOR MAN'S MAN-CAVE. TELL THE SPOUSAL UNIT THE GARAGE IS OFF LIMITS !! Anyway BO was a good read years ago... if you really stop and think about it - my gosh this program has been through some wilderness years baoklahorn, but you and I never waivered. Think about the latter years with Freddie, then laid back McWilliams and button down Mackovic. There were some awful losses and beat downs in those years. I am so grateful and pleased with what Mack has accomplished - he pulled the program away from the edge of the cliff. Many of you younger fans are spoiled - hell some of us older fans are spoiled.
I have that book too. that season was like an oasis in the desert of crappy seasons. at least we were beating OU at that time. people who say A&M is not a worthy rival should try to remember that time when it was a big deal to beat A&M.
I got "Game of the Century" in December of '70 written by J Neal Blanton who I think was with a newspaper at the time. Book covers the decision to change the date of the '69 Arknasas game and then covers the week before the game. The bulk of the book reviews the game and there is an epilogue about Freddie Steinmark. I received it in early December of '70 and I forced myself to not get started reading it until I had finished my finals--no small chore. It helped that we had just pounded them 42-7 in the rematch at DKRTMS. I have subsequently had it autographed by DKR, James Street and Randy Peschel. It is NOT for sale.