Contributors
Michael Hall
“Not one person had a negative thing to say about him,” says senior editor Michael Hall about his profile subject this month, the notoriously nice University of Texas head football coach, Mack Brown (“The Eyes of Texas Are Upon Him,”). Still, after following the UT field general through the spring practice season, Hall says that Brown’s popularity might be contributing to the lingering Longhorn losing streak against Oklahoma. “Sometimes you can want people to like you so badly that you’re unwilling to take chances,” says the UT grad and longtime Green Bay Packers fan. “But did Vince Lombardi care what people thought about him?”
Nate Blakeslee
Five years ago, former Texas Observer editor Nate Blakeslee broke the story about a corrupt narcotics task force in the West Texas town of Tulia, where 39 African Americans were wrongly imprisoned on trumped-up drug charges. The story garnered Blakeslee a National Magazine Award nomination and was picked up by the national media. But as he writes in “The War on Thugs”, an adaptation from his new book Tulia (PublicAffairs), the now-infamous event was hardly an isolated phenomenon in Texas. “Tulia was a particularly egregious case,” says the Austin-based writer. “But it wasn’t unique in kind, only in degree.”
Jeff Wilson
“I just really like football,” says Austin photographer Jeff Wilson, explaining why he set out last winter to shoot high school stadiums all over Texas for his photo essay, “Fields of Dreams,” Wilson traveled more than four thousand miles to nineteen stadiums, setting out as early as three o’clock to catch the morning light and shooting each home-team section from the same spot on the 50-yard line. “I wanted every shot to have the same vantage,” he says. “In that sense you can get a feeling for how each stadium represents the people who live there and the way they think about football.”
Michael Hall
“Not one person had a negative thing to say about him,” says senior editor Michael Hall about his profile subject this month, the notoriously nice University of Texas head football coach, Mack Brown (“The Eyes of Texas Are Upon Him,”). Still, after following the UT field general through the spring practice season, Hall says that Brown’s popularity might be contributing to the lingering Longhorn losing streak against Oklahoma. “Sometimes you can want people to like you so badly that you’re unwilling to take chances,” says the UT grad and longtime Green Bay Packers fan. “But did Vince Lombardi care what people thought about him?”
Nate Blakeslee
Five years ago, former Texas Observer editor Nate Blakeslee broke the story about a corrupt narcotics task force in the West Texas town of Tulia, where 39 African Americans were wrongly imprisoned on trumped-up drug charges. The story garnered Blakeslee a National Magazine Award nomination and was picked up by the national media. But as he writes in “The War on Thugs”, an adaptation from his new book Tulia (PublicAffairs), the now-infamous event was hardly an isolated phenomenon in Texas. “Tulia was a particularly egregious case,” says the Austin-based writer. “But it wasn’t unique in kind, only in degree.”
Jeff Wilson
“I just really like football,” says Austin photographer Jeff Wilson, explaining why he set out last winter to shoot high school stadiums all over Texas for his photo essay, “Fields of Dreams,” Wilson traveled more than four thousand miles to nineteen stadiums, setting out as early as three o’clock to catch the morning light and shooting each home-team section from the same spot on the 50-yard line. “I wanted every shot to have the same vantage,” he says. “In that sense you can get a feeling for how each stadium represents the people who live there and the way they think about football.”
Add your comment »