Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Six-Man Football Team [Hardcover]

Carlton Stowers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 16, 2005

An hour's drive south of Dallas, in the tiny community of Penelope (population 211), Carlton Stowers found the perfect vantage point from which to view a small town as it came together around their six-man high-school football team. Here, where shopping for groceries is a forty-five-minute round-trip drive and there is no stoplight on Main Street, he followed the hapless Penelope Wolverines in their quest to win their second game in four years since reviving their football program after a thirty-seven-year hiatus. But even as the team struggled, the entire town still came out to show its support every Friday night. Why? Because as one Texas writer recently said, "Texas high school football is a six-point favorite over Sunday-go-to-meetin' in most small towns." A wide-open game in which teams sprint up and down the field and where the combined score can typically exceed one hundred points, six-man football was invented in Nebraska in 1934. At its peak in 1953, 30,000 teams across the country and in Canada competed in the sport. Though there are fewer teams now, it is still played in states as far flung as Texas, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, and Kansas, among others. A poignant story of a small town, and its unwavering support-through thick and a lot of thin-of the winless Wolverines, Where Dreams Die Hard is a warm and revealing slice of life in the American heartland and of a culture fast disappearing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In tiny Penelope, Texas, population 211, six-man football rules. The game is a scaled-down version of the more common 11-man version, originally designed in the 1930s by a Nebraska coach who wanted small, rural schools to be able to have football teams. Fast forward to today, and six-man football thrives in small Texas communities, where it's played among high schools that have fewer than 99 students. Stowers, a Texas journalist, went to Penelope to observe the world of small-town, small-team football. He intersperses his observations of football practices with interviews with various members of the community, and in doing so paints a picture of present-day rural life. The book poses questions surrounding the survival of small towns, as Stowers himself wonders whether the students he's observing will actually stay in Penelope. Although at times Stowers's narrative could use more visual description to really evoke the place he's writing about, the book is a glimpse into a small town rallying around a cause, and a look at a way of life that city dwellers rarely see.
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Review

"A great read and terrific insight... Stowers is a tremendous writer." -- sixmanfootball.com August, 2005

"A heartwarming story that will make you glad there are places like Penelope, Texas, still around." -- San Angelo Standard-Times 9/9/05

"A nifty little paeon to small towns and their six-man football teams." -- Montrose Daily Press 9/13/05

"An easy book for anyone to love." -- The Book Worm 9/8/05

"Engaging and fantastically detailed." -- Turtle Creek News 8/26/2005

"Far more than football." -- Houston Chronicle 9/18/2005

"Get a copy.... You'll be encouraged and uplifted." -- The Mexia Daily 9/16/05

"Heartwarming...This book is about much more than football-it's about people who care about each other." -- Deseret News, 8/29/05

"Moving...Stowers' account is like spending a weekend with your country cousin." -- Texas Monthly September, 2005

"Not just about football. It's the saga of Penelope the town, and how that isolated community... rallied around its team." -- Fort Worth Star-Telegram 9/25/05

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; First Edition edition (August 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306814048
• ISBN-13: 978-0306814044
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,664,354 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A friendlier "Friday Night Lights", September 4, 2005

By 

Stanley Hudy "Hudy's Hardcovers" (Saratoga Springs, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Six-Man Football Team (Hardcover)

As the August breezes begin to pick up, the days start to become shorter and thoughts return to fall, the end of the summer season brings about the start of another season, the high school football season.
Thousands of players will have participated in two-a-day practices throughout the dog days of August, all in the hopes of winning games, setting records and pursuing championships.
The only difference between most of the squads competing in the United States and the 112 public high school teams competing throughout Texas, is that they do it a little differently. For those smaller Lone Star Schools, whose student enrollment falls below 100, they play under their own Friday Night lights in the glorious game of six-man football.
Author Carlton Stowers became tired of his own newspaper's front pages, dedicated to the misdoings of others, bombings and mayhem he had seen from a news reporter's eyes. He made the decision to turn his reporter pen and pad towards a quieter town, in a quieter portion of Texas and follow the world of six-man football for a season.
His travels took him to the small town of Penelope and it's populous of 211 residents and the Wolverines six-man football team.
The railroad had left Penelope in 1960 and so went with it the cotton commerce that brought people to it. In 1963 the high school made the decision to abandon its football program. In 1999 a student, Marvin Hill, prodded by his classmates asked the superintendent requesting that football be re-instated in the Wolverines fall season.
The game of six-man football was established in the late 1930's as a sport for the small rural schools. It involves three lineman, three backs and a quarterback. Traditionally it is played on an 80-yard field, 15-yards are needed for a first down, 10-minute quarters are played and all players are eligible to receive a pass. Also included would be a 45-point mercy rule after the first half was complete.
With the help of the superintendent and an open board of education, donations flowed in to field a team that first season. As the interest continued year after year, a playing field, all two-acres of it, was purchased, grass planted and goalposts were acquired when a neighboring school moved up in class, they too were sent to Penelope.
It would be Hill who made history, scoring the first-ever touchdown for the Wolverines that first season.
Fast forward to 2004 when Penelope is led by coach Corey McAdams, the former state championship quarterback and college star at Hardin-Simmons University. It would be his job to bring the Wolverines back on a winning track, turning the tide on the squad's current 1 win, 31 loss record.
Stowers takes the reader onto the practice field, into the hallways of Penelope High and into the homes of the players, their families and their lives.
It is a different type of life in the small towns in Texas, something that many suburban readers may have a hard time comprehending.
When the entire town turns out for a football contest, they may not fill most local high school auditoriums, the coaches drive the bus to away games, that is if his players show up on time after they finish building a sheep fence.
"Where Dreams Die Hard" is not as hard hitting as the best selling "Friday Night Lights", but Stowers stills delves into issues that would make any towns population uneasy. It is the picture that Stowers paints of the small towns in Texas, the wins and the losses by the Penelope High Wolverines squad that make the book so enjoyable.
The length of "Where Dreams Die Hard," is also agreeable to the reader with its 201 pages, fitting for a sport which boasts just 12 players on the gridiron compared to the traditional 22. Stower's work has intrigue, history, heartwarming stories about the players, their families as well as the author's own relationship with his dying father.
While they may host smaller lineups, play in front of smaller crowds, the characters in "Where Dreams Die Hard" are focused on success every Friday evening under the Texas sky, proving that things in Texas are bigger, especially the hearts of those playing six-man football.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Football and Life in Small-Town Texas, September 9, 2011

By 

Eric Mayforth (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Six-Man Football Team (Paperback)

Texas is well-known for some of its big-time sports teams: the Dallas Cowboys have won five Super Bowls and are known as "America's Team," the Texas Longhorns have won multiple college football national championships in the last half-century, and the state's three NBA franchises have each won at least one world title.

But the Lone Star State is also known for a brand of football that is played on a much smaller stage by very small schools: six-man football, a variant of the game that engenders fierce loyalty on the part of those who play it and those who follow it closely. In "Where Dreams Die Hard," author Carlton Stowers spent the 2004 season following a six-man team, the Penelope High Wolverines.

The school had begun its program only five years earlier and had had very limited success prior to the season Stowers covered the team. Coach Corey McAdams had the challenge of working toward building a winning program, and this book tracks the Friday night by Friday night ups and downs of that effort.

The book is also about more than football: it looks at life in small-town Texas, in which people in close-knit towns band together in the face of adversity. There are also discussions of issues in teenage life and of challenges, both athletic and academic, that small-town schools face. If you like Texas football and enjoyed Friday Night Lights, you will almost certainly like "Where Dreams Die Hard."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, October 28, 2008

By 

Retired Early (Libertyville, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Six-Man Football Team (Hardcover)

I played six-man and eight-man football in high school, so this book was very interesting to me. It realistically shows some of the life in small towns.