Twelve Mighty Orphans

I love reading. Heck, I’ve always loved reading. I remember when I was in elementary school as early as first and second grade and getting my school work done as quickly as I could so I could go to the back of the classroom and get a book to read. All of my classrooms had a little library in back full of books appropriate for our age level. I read every book a little boy could be interested in. So, I decided I would do a book review or two now and then.

A book that I read a few years ago and really liked is called Twelve Mighty Orphans by Jim Dent, the same man who authored The Junction Boys. Dent tells the Depression-era true story of the mighty orphans from the Masonic Home in Fort Worth, Texas. The scrawny orphan football team captured the hearts and minds of Americans as they beat all odds succeeding at the game of football as well as the game of life.

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. But a lean, bespectacled coach by the name of Rusty Russell showed up and changed everything. Russell looked more like a librarian than a football coach but as one reader put it “here was a man who could bring rain in the midst of a drought”. There are no diagrams of the offense or defense this team ran but it sounds like Russell was the father of the spread offense way back in the 1930’s. 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. If you want to read an inspiring football story about maybe the toughest group of kids that ever played the game, then this book is for you. You will shake your head in amazement sometimes.

I highly recommend this book. Visit chiefpigskin.com for more high school and college football stories and videos.