We used to be known for running backs, but all of a sudden, we’re famous for producing some of the country’s best passers, from Drew Brees to Colt McCoy. What turned our high school football programs into quarterback factories?
Michael Hall talks about researching acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), walking the halls of Texas Children’s Hospital, and interviewing the parents of a remarkable skater kid who died.
Ty and Koy Detmer were South Texas high school football heroes. Now they’re NFL quarterbacks. They owe it all to their father, a coaching whiz everybody calls Sonny.
Twenty-five years ago, in the wake of integration, he was the football star at my mostly white high school in Wichita Falls. Not much has gone right for him since.
The University of Houston quarterback leads the nation in passing attempts, completions, and yardage, and he’s tied for the NCAA lead with 38 touchdown passes. But does he have what it takes to win the Heisman?
Drew Brees's parents don't look forward to seeing him get thrown to the ground on national TV each week. But they sure do love having an NFL quarterback for a son.
Die-hard fans of America’s Team are debating that very question as we speak—and also wondering if the kid from Wisconsin with the buxom distraction can take them to the Super Bowl any faster than, say, Gary Hogeboom did.
The hip-hop inspired “purple drank” may have claimed its latest victim—former A&M defensive tackle Johnny Jolly of the Green Bay Packers—who faces prison time for possession of at least 200 grams of codeine, a key ingredient.
Will this be the year that the University of Texas Longhorns—the most talented college football team in the country—win their first national title since 1970? Yes. Hook ’em.
How did the University of Texas build the most successful college sports program in history? One visionary coach at a time. One world-class athlete at a time. One state-of-the-art stadium at a time. And with an ambitious, aggressive business model that’s the envy of its rivals everywhere.
“Kids used to be so excited just to have an opportunity to play. Now I see more of a mentality of entitlement: ‘I’m a tremendous athlete, so you owe me this.”
Evan Smith is the cofounder of the Texas Tribune, a senior adviser at Emerson Collective, and the former editor in chief and president of Texas Monthly.
If Texas Tech fires Leach, there will be a mushroom cloud over Lubbock for thousands of miles and a likely revolt of Tech fans, alums, and former players.
Depending on your point of view, the firing of Mike Leach, Texas Tech’s controversial football coach, was about the state of football (the sport has gone soft), concussions (they are a potentially life-threatening condition), or celebrity meddling (Craig James was a helicopter dad). But is it possible that Leach has
How a fish called Ethel (seventeen pounds, ten ounces) caught by a fishing guide named Mark (Stevenson, in 1986, on Lake Fork) revolutionized a once-sleepy sport.
How about those Cowboys? Ever since the team's egotistical owner, Jerry Jones, fired coach Jimmy Johnson in a fit of pique, the 'Boys have never been on a slippery slope to perdition. But it's die-hard fans like me who are in hell.
“I don’t like confrontation, although it’s alleged that I do. But I learned playing football that confrontation is necessary. You’d better get another sport if you don’t acknowledge and accept and willfully go after confrontation.”
Evan Smith is the cofounder of the Texas Tribune, a senior adviser at Emerson Collective, and the former editor in chief and president of Texas Monthly.
Sure, sure, the newspaper business is dying, and this is bad for freedom, accountability, and democracy itself. But worst of all is what’s happened to sportswriting.
A veteran Hollywood screenwriter couldn’t have come up with a better narrative arc: Seeking redemption, 59-year-old reenrolls at university he was once asked to leave, tries out for football team, makes it, becomes one of oldest-ever players in NCAA history. Or at least that’s how the hero wants it to
Fernando Spada and Fernando Mendez are the Karpov and Kasparov of Brownsville: chess champions whose lifelong competition has produced a rivalry every bit as fierce as those of Ali and Frazier, McEnroe and Borg, or Nicklaus and Palmer. Did I mention that they’re in the fourth grade?
On November 5, 181,500 people crowded into a former cow pasture north of Fort Worth to watch 43 race cars drive really, really fast for five hundred miles. That day, the Texas Motor Speedway would be, measured by population, one of the largest cities in the state. Welcome to NASCAR,
This month, more than 150,000 fans will pack an enormous new venue near Fort Worth to watch the state’s first major stock car race. Clearly, NASCAR is on the right track in Texas.
How Jim Wright schoozes, George Foreman bruises, ZZ Top trims, and Janet Evans swims, plus the straight skinny on everything else from nearly fifty other Texas celebrities.
Evan Smith is the cofounder of the Texas Tribune, a senior adviser at Emerson Collective, and the former editor in chief and president of Texas Monthly.
All four remaining NFL teams have their share of Texas college football favorites, but--sorry Red Raiders--you can't seriously expect us to root for San Francisco or New England, right?
ESPN guru Mel Kiper Jr.’s first NFL draft projection of 2013 has Texas A&M offensive tackle Luke Joeckel as the top pick, followed immediately by Aggies defensive end Damontre Moore.
An ESPN analysis of "recruiting migration" trends among Top 20 college football teams found one thing never changes: Texas had the most players in both 1940 and 2010.
Anybody (including many Aggies) who said they expected Texas A&M's first season in the Southeastern Conference to go so well is lying. But it's still funny to look back at all the naysayers.
