Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football [Hardcover]

Jim Dent (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 4, 2007

Jim Dent, author of the New York Times bestselling The Junction Boys, returns with his most powerful story of human courage and determination.

More than a century ago, a school was constructed in Fort Worth, Texas, for the purpose of housing and educating the orphans of Texas Freemasons. It was a humble project that for years existed quietly on a hillside east of town. Life at the Masonic Home was about to change, though, with the arrival of a lean, bespectacled coach by the name of Rusty Russell. Here was a man who could bring rain in the midst of a drought. Here was a man who, in virtually no time at all, brought the orphans' story into the homes of millions of Americans.
      In the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing bigger in Texas high school football than the Masonic Home Mighty Mites--a group of orphans bound together by hardship and death. These youngsters, in spite of being outweighed by at least thirty pounds per man, were the toughest football team around. They began with nothing--not even a football--yet in a few years were playing for the state championship on the highest level of Texas football. This is a winning tribute to a courageous band of underdogs from a time when America desperately needed fresh hope and big dreams.
      The Mighty Mites remain a notable moment in the long history of American sports. Just as significant is the depth of the inspirational message. This is a profound lesson in fighting back and clinging to faith. The real winners in Texas high school football were not the kids from the biggest schools, or the ones wearing the most expensive uniforms. They were the scrawny kids from a tiny orphanage who wore scarred helmets and faded jerseys that did not match, kids coached by a devoted man who lived on peanuts and drove them around in a smoke-belching old truck.
      In writing a story of unforgettable characters and great football, Jim Dent has come forward to reclaim his place as one of the top sports authors in America today.
      A remarkable and inspirational story of an orphanage and the man who created one of the greatest football teams Texas has ever known . . . this is their story--the original Friday Night Lights.

 

"This just might be the best sports book ever written. Jim Dent has crafted a story that will go down as one of the most artistic, one of the most unforgettable, and one of the most inspirational ever. Twelve Mighty Orphans will challenge Hoosiers as the feel-good sports story of our lifetime. Naturally, being from Texas, I am biased. Hooray for the Mighty Mites.''
--Verne Lundquist, CBS Sports
 
"Coach Rusty Russell and the Mighty Mites will steal your heart as they overcome every obstacle imaginable to become a respected football team. Take an orphanage, the Depression, and mix it with Texas high school football, and Jim Dent has authored another winner, this one about the ultimate underdog.''
--Brent Musburger, ABC Sports/ESPN
 
"No state has a roll call of legendary high school football stories like we do in Texas, and, admittedly, some of those stories have been 'expanded' over the years when it comes to the truth. But let Jim Dent tell you about the Mighty Mites of Masonic Home, the pride of Fort Worth in the dark days of the Depression. Read this book. You will think it's fiction. You will think it's a Hollywood script. But Twelve Mighty Orphans is the truth, and nothing but. It is powerful stuff. Some eighty years later, the Mighty Mites' story remains so sacred, not even a Texan would dare tamper with these facts. And Jim Dent tells it like it was."
-- Randy Galloway, columnist, Fort-Worth Star Telegram

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dent, who told the story of Bear Bryant's brutal preseason training of the 1954 Aggies in The Junction Boys, turns to the incredible story of Rusty Russell and his undersized team of orphans who dominated the gridiron of Texas high school football for the better part of the 1930s. True underdogs, most boys from the Masonic Home never held a real football; they used two socks stuffed together as footballs and, when Russell first took over, used Clabber Girl baking cans during practice. But the lean, scrappy Mighty Mites—as they were later dubbed—achieved an 8-2 record their first season of play in Class B. A few years later, in 1932, they moved up to Class A, the big leagues of high school football at the time. There, the Mites would face teams that outweighed them by as much as 50 pounds per man and fielded 47 players to their 12, and the orphans would win. Dent's strength is his play-by-play accounts of key games, but descriptions of personal interactions are often forced and lifeless. Also, many characters and events that are introduced at length don't factor significantly into the larger story line. Dent does more to mythologize the team and its players than to give them flesh and blood. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

The Masonic Home, an orphanage outside Fort Worth, became a high-school football dynasty in Depression-era Texas. Despite having virtually no equipment or uniforms, and despite their linemen often being outweighed by 50 pounds, the Mighty Mites, as they came to be known, reached the Texas state semifinals three times and the championship game once. Dent, author of The Junction Boys (1999), another inspirational story of Texas football, produces a riveting narrative from the saga of the Mites and their innovative coach, Rusty Russell, who compensated for his team's physical shortcomings with imaginative formations and trick plays. Using extensive first-person research and, when that wasn't possible, interviews with the immediate descendants of the principals, Dent builds a sense of drama and immediacy by placing readers in the heart of the Depression and a Texas that still had a bit of the Wild West in it. This is Seabiscuit for football fans, sure to attract narrative nonfiction fans who like to mix sports, inspiration, and popular history. Lukowsky, Wes

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (September 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312308728
• ISBN-13: 978-0312308728
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #494,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jim Dent is a New York Times bestselling author who has written nine books.
His latest, "Courage Beyond The Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story,'' was selected as one of the best nonfiction books of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews. It was also named one of the top eight biographies of the year. The book focuses on the life of Freddie Steinmark, who started nineteen straight winning games at the University of Texas and was an All-Southwest Conference performer on the 1969 national championship team. He played that year with an excruciatingly painful osteosarcoma in his left thighbone. Still, Steinmark left the field only once in the final regular season game against Arkansas. Texas defeated Arkansas 15-14 in the "Game Of The Century'' and went on to defeat Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl. Steinmark's story has been compared to "Brian's Song'' and is expected to reach the big screen in 2012. Another one of Dent's bestselling books, "Twelve Mighty Orphans,'' is also slated for movie theaters before the end of the year. For more information on Dent, check out Facebook, along with his "Courage Beyond The Game'' page that includes two video documentaries on Steinmark's life. You might also want to read "The Junction Boys,'' that was adapted into an ESPN movie in 2002. Dent is currently working on his tenth book, along with producing the movie on Steinmark.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Inspiring Story During Depressing Times September 16, 2007

By A. N. Turner

Format:Hardcover

I'm a native Texan and an avid football fan who played football in the southern panhandle area between Odessa and Lubbock and I had never heard this story. I'm thankful that Jim Dent wrote this book and you will be, too.

This is a story of struggle and perseverance during terrible times. The facts are how a rag-tag football team from an orphans home in the 1930's competed and won against the "big dogs" of Texas high school football. The heart of the story, though, is how this orphans home, Masonic Home, it's coach, Rusty Russell, and the players, usually only 12 on the team during any season, overcame harsh times and even harsher lives.

That these boys, who found themselves in this home after the deaths of one or both parents and who sometimes witnessed these deaths first-hand, played football at all is nothing short of fantastic. That they grew as young men under the mentorship of a caring coach is a testament to perseverance in the face of enormous odds...in other words, almost miraculous.

Throughout the book, the author sprinkles stories away from the football field to bring life at the Masonic Home into focus. The oil boom, depression, poverty, Texas football politics, Jack Dempsey, and even Seabiscuit all come together to relate the life and times of this school and football team.

If you're a native Texan, love football, or cheer for the underdog, you will thoroughly enjoy this book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Mighty Mites Rule November 10, 2007

By Beverly Rigsby

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

In my opinion Twelve Mighty Orphans is absolutely the best sports nonfiction book to come along since Seabiscuit, An American Legend. And they both have a similar theme throughout - that of America's love for the underdog. You don't have to be a football expert to be rooting for the boys at the Home. The editorial review from Publisher's Weekly on this page that said "Dent's strength is his play-by-play accounts of key games, but descriptions of personal interactions are often forced and lifeless" is completely off the mark. The play-by-play is great, of course, and exciting. However, it's the back story of the underdogs that grew up at the Masonic Home and scrapped their way to winning while being transported to games on the bed of a wheezing old truck that brings it all together and makes the reader care passionately for the Mighty Mites. Without stories of what shaped the orphans before and after their coming to the Home it could very well have been like reading descriptions of games that were straight off the sports pages of a newspaper. My congrats to Jim Dent for making this story a feel-good winner.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful story of human nature March 20, 2008

By Melissa Jersild

Format:Hardcover

I purchased this book for my father for Christmas--he's a huge football fan, played high school ball in Texas years after the depression. He'd never heard of the Mighty Mites, and, were it not for a review I heard on the radio, we may never have. Turns out, he has a lot of ties to the people in the book.

The book itself is well-written, easy to read historical and personal account of the coach, the home and the boys who lived there. We get background on some families, a real history of the coach and the real-life look at the way life was in the home. IT was not pretty, it was hard indeed, but these boys were given a chance to do something beyond the school's fence. Their coach taught them how to play football, but more importantly, how to be a team and how to be men. His love for the game and the boys jumps off the page and you can feel it in every move he makes, every sacrifice he makes for the school. It follows several years of the "Mighty Mites" team, from their inception to their ultimate conclusion.

This is a wonderful story of the human condition, of overcoming odds and expectations, and how one person can make a huge difference in the lives of others when he is truly committed. Football fan or not, this is a wonderful telling of the lives of some special kids and the man who led them.