The Kids Got It Right: How the Texas All-Stars Kicked Down Racial Walls

by Jim Dent

New York Times bestselling author Jim Dent pens the compelling story of how a black and white player came together to break the color barrier in Texas football in 1965. Jerry LeVias and Bill Bradley bonded as friends at the Big 33 high school all-star game, producing a dramatic finish that fans still talk about. Jim Dent takes the reader to the heart of Texas football with the incredible story of how two young men broke the chain of racism that had existed for more than half a century. In 1965, black and white players barely mixed in Texas. That summer, Jerry LeVias and Bill Bradley came together at the Big 33 game in Hershey, Pennsylvania. When no one else would room with LeVias, Bradley stepped forward. The two became the closest of friends and the best of teammates. LeVias called Bradley "my blue-eyed soul brother.'' Big-hearted, gregarious, and free-spirited, Bradley looked out for LeVias – one of three black players on the team. The Texas team came to Hershey with a mandate to win. A year earlier, Texas had lost to the Pennsylvania all-stars 12-6 in the most significant defeat in the state's proud history. This was considered blasphemy in a place where football outranked religion. Texas coach Bobby Layne was mad-as-hell that he was forced to play with second stringers in '64. So he and assistant coach Doak Walker traveled to Austin and asked Texas governor John Connally to end the scheduling conflict with the in-state all-star game so he could suit up the best players. Layne also sought permission to recruit black players. After all, Texas was flush with black stars, some of whom would mature into the most notable players in the history of the National Football League. Layne's scheme never would have worked without Bradley and LeVias. Together―and with Layne's indomitable will to win―the two led their team proudly to face down the competition at Hershey Stadium. The Kids Got It Right is a moving story, reminiscent of Remember The Titans . Jim Dent once again brings readers to cheers and tears with a truly American tale of leadership, brotherhood, and good-ol' Texas-style football.

Genres: Football, Nonfiction, Sports, History, American History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published August 20, 2013

Reviews

[John Yingling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I respected the author's main reason for writing this book, and its affect on sports in general, and specifically to sports in Texas in the 1960s. However, what brought my review down to 3 stars is his blatant bias toward the Texas football team during the Big 33 games from 1964-1967. I might, emphasis on "might", have understood his one-time use of the term "coalcrackers" to refer to the Pennsylvania team, but when it is repeated dozens of times, I got pretty disgusted, and I am not from Pennsylvania. Then, his obvious homerism really began to irritate me. It seems, to this author, that no insult or derogatory terms towards the Pennsylvania team on the part of the Texas team was too mean-spirited. Underage drinking, stealing the Pennsylvania team members girlfriends, and wild parties all got a free pass from the author. I appreciate his bringing to life a time when the color of one's skin determined one's place in life and in sports, but his undisguised rooting for one side over another really detracts from the story.

[Don LaFountaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book about the preparation for the Big 33 football game of 1965 between the best high school football players between Texas and Pennsylvania.

In 1964, Pennsylvania challenged Texas to a football game to determine which state had the best high school football team. The date that Pennsylvania anointed for the game was the same day as the Texas East/West game. This meant that the best Texas players were unable to make the trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania. The winner of that game was Pennsylvania. As the Texas coaches and players were walking off the field, the fans taunted them by accusing them of killing President Kennedy and asking if they wanted to have a rematch.

When Pennsylvania challenged them again in 1965, it so happened to be again on the same date as the Texas East/West game. Was it intentional? Well, the Penn guys said no, but the Texas guys said yes. So, the coaches of the Texas team went to the Governor and asked to have the East/West game moved up by a week. This happened and the 1st stringers went to Hershey that year.

An interesting side bar to the story was that an African-American wide receiver named Jerry LeVias was named to the team. The problem was that in 1965 racism was prominent, especially in Texas. So when asked, star player Bill Bradley said yes to having LeVias as his roommate. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. It was also the combination of quarterback and receiver that allowed the Texas team to overcome a 10 – 0 deficit to win the 1965 game.

This was a pretty good book, though not what I had expected. The title implied that the book was about overcoming racism and integrating Texas sports, specifically football. While there was discussion about how rampant racism was during that time, and how Jerry LeVias and other African-Americans dealt with everything they faced, the book was mostly about the football game. Not being a football fan, had I known that the sport was what it was mostly about, I probably would not have read it. While I probably will not re-read the book, I did enjoy it and would recommend it to anyone who likes football, especially high school football.

[Teri Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

My brother-in-law (BIL) went to college with Bill Bradley at the University of Texas. When Bill came to the Eagles, he roomed with my BIL in Radnor, PA. (Our family is from PA). This past month, Bill was in town for an Eagles game and he contacted my BIL to join him as his guest. Just as stated in the book, Bill and my BIL picked up where they left off 50 years ago! When I heard about this book , I just had to read it. Not just because my sister and BIL know Bill, but also because of the story. Jerry LeVias is the true hero of this story. His choice to keep his commitment to SMU realizing just how lonely and difficult his journey would be as the ONLY black man on the team let alone on campus is truly heroic. The hate he dealt with is unpalatable. Everyone should read this book and put yourself in Jerry’s shoes.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great book about Texas football from Jim Dent. Jerry Levias from Beaumont was the first black player in the Southwest Conference. He played at SMU for Hayden Fry who wanted to recruit black players and end the "gentlemen's agreement" among Texas coaches not to recruit them. The stories of the friendships of Jerry Levias and Bill Bradley as well as Bobby Layne and Doak Walker (who played for Rusty Russell at Highland Park) are heartwarming and powerful. Good read if you are a Texan whether or not you like football.

[Chris Doelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jim Dent has done it again. In The Kids Got It Right, he tells the tale of Texas high school football and the impact it had on breaking the color barrier. For my full review, read here ---> http://www.ridingwiththewindowdown.co...

[Megan Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dry read but interesting if you are interested in Texas high school football history.

[Deborah Dibble · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous true sports story! I listened to it on audible.com, glad I did!

[Kira Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t remember why I added this book to my wishlist, but I’m glad I did. Learned a lot

[Rhoda · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, I have to disclose that I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. This in no way impacts how I rated the read.

Jim Dent tackles another football tale in The Kids Got It Right. A large portion of the story follows this huge game between Pennsylvania and Texas, known as the Big 33 Football Classic. I find the synopsis of this book a little misleading. I was led to believe that the majority of the story would follow the friendship between Bill Bradley and Jerry LeVias and how LeVias had to overcome being one of the very few black men who were allowed to play at the time. This is incorrect to an extent. The Kids Got It Right goes off into a lot of tangents. While these divergences from the heart of the story still have to do with football, it seemed like the story was more about former quarterback and coach of the Texas Big 33 team, Bobby Layne and his efforts than LeVias.

I've seen rave reviews for this book and how moving it is and how it's such a feel-good story, but I just did not have the same reaction. The lives of these people do not go well. In some cases, their lives are quite sad, so as far as using the word uplifting to describe this story, I would probably have to disagree. LeVias suffered from the abuse people put him through, and it was just very sad.

That aside, I enjoyed this read, and, as star-ratings on Goodreads are kind of different from other sites, the three stars is that I liked the read. I didn't find it extraordinary or overly moving. The writing style is easy, and I'll have to bring up a huge negative for me. I received an advance reading copy. It was just full of easily fixed grammatical and technical errors; some portions of the story had several sentences in a row that were full of errors and which were also hard to read because of the sheer volume of mistakes present. After using Amazon's Look Inside feature, it looks like some of the errors were fixed. I definitely couldn't go back and check them all, but if the book had been published as-is from what the advance reading copy was (and I don't believe it was), that would have been very bad. This did not impact the rating.

A note: if you're coming into this read with little to no knowledge of football, some of the play-by-play narrative might leave you totally confused and lost.

Overall: I expected to enjoy this story more. It's not the best thing I've ever read, and I also didn't find it very moving or even as moving as other readers seem to feel. It could be an excellent read for football fans or fans of any of the players present in the story. Again, for those not familiar with football, it might be difficult to understand what's going on during games.

[Tom Gase · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had mixed feelings about this book. I like the author because he wrote one of my favorite books of all time, 12 Mighty Orphans, but this book seems like it was written almost as if the author was hoping it would be made into a movie and he didn't care if he bent the truth a little in order to make the story better. A lot of this book just seems...unbelievable. And not in a good way. Mostly with dialogue. How could someone, who wasn't there, know exactly how things were said over 50 years ago? And like another reviewer of this book said, the author keeps referring to the Penn team as their nickname, "the coalcrackers." Okay, maybe once or twice use the nickname, but throughout the whole book? Come on. And it's soooo obvious the author is bias with the Texas team. You can almost hear him laughing in the background everytime a Texas player acted kind of like an arrogant jerk and would steal Penn's players girlfriends. If the Penn players were also acting like jerks or being racist, okay I can see that, but I didn't get that feeling. I did however like the story in the book dealing with Bill Bradley and Jerry DeVias' friendship during the Civil Rights era. That stuff was moving and very interesting. How much of it I believe? That's another question. If you like books on high school football or just football in general, you'll like this. Just know that it reads like a fiction book.

[John Gold · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written book that I found very interesting. I am absolutely biased as I grew up in Palestine, TX which is where several of the characters in this book are from. Nonetheless, interesting historical account of integration of high school football in Texas. Jim Dent does a great job painting the picture of what it was like at the time and the social dogmas that existed in Texas in the 1960s.

Great story...quick read...if you're interested in sports history, I highly recommend!

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendous story and an engrossing read. I read this one cover to cover in just three days and I am not a fast reader by any means!

The hardships faced by some in the 60s is hard for me to fathom. I would love to meet LaVias one day. The actions of Bradley were inspirational as well.

First The Junction Boys and now this. I think I've found my new favorite author in Jim Dent.

[Byron Wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a good read on the integration of high school football in Texas back in the 1960's. The annual Big 33 game with Pennsylvania and Texas must have been huge back in the day!! I also thought the stories of Jerry LeVias and Bill Bradley were ones that made the book. Good read and I definitely recommend it.

[Jackchristopherhill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book!

Dent is the greatest sports book author of all time. His books never disappoint. Hopefully some day he'll write again.

[Patricia Kerster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic story and a wonderful look into a piece of history. I particularly enjoyed reading about the friendship between Bradley and LaVias.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, solid sports read. It was definitely refreshing to get back into my comfort zone after spending awhile in fictional landscapes.