Thursday Night Lights

Starred review from September 1, 2017
As the National Football League stormed into America's consciousness from the late 1950s into the 1970s, few fans wondered, Where did all those great black players come from? It obviously wasn't from the segregated white high schools south of the Mason Dixon line. No, it was from the parallel universe of black high schools, such as the Prairie View Interscholastic League (PVIL) in Texas. Author Hurd works for Prairie View A&M University documenting the history of Texas African Americans, and he brings that expertise to this revelatory book. In segregated Texas, he reports, the black high schools formed a league that played its football games on weeknights to avoid conflicts with the primarily white high-school games celebrated in Friday Night Lights. Hurd interviewed many of the participants in PVIL football and did extensive research, even drawing on surviving memorabilia, to present this portrait of a vibrant, African American culture that also loved its football. The list of prominent professional players that the PVIL produced is an extraordinary testament to the quality of football played in the league: Mean Joe Greene, Charley Taylor, Gene Upshaw, Dick Night Train Lane, and Ken Houston, all NFL Hall of Famers, along with dozens of Pro Bowlers. Hurd's interviews reveal the intense pride that players felt in their communities and their schools. (There are still reunions and award ceremonies almost 50 years after the PVIL was swallowed up by desegregation.) Hurd re-creates an overlooked time and place that contributed so much to the growth of football as we know it today.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)