Mighty, mighty Matadors
Subtitle: Estacado High School, integration, and a championship season
By: Al Pickett
Edition: First edition.
Series: Swaim-Paup-Foran Spirit of Sport Series; Swaim-Paup-Foran spirit of sport series
Publisher: Texas A & M University Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 142
ISBN-13: 9781623495510
Subjects: Estacado High School (Lubbock, Tex.); Football; School integration; Estacado Matadors (Football team); Biography; History
Description: Strongly inviting comparisons with the movie Remember the Titans, this inspiring story of the 1968 state champion Estacado Matadors carries a distinctly Texan flavor. Veteran sports journalist and author Al Pickett interviewed the players, Coach Jimmie Keeling, members of the Lubbock Independent School District administrators to assemble a colorful, insider account of a group of young men who came together for love of a sport and the coach who mentored, encouraged, and guided them. In the late 1960s, the Lubbock Independent School District was pressured by the courts to address its still-segregated system, and the creation of Estacado was instituted as an integrated campus, combining students from Dunbar High School (all African American) and Lubbock High School (predominantly white) and their junior high "feeder" schools. Remarkably, Coach Keeling forged a unit that was not only cohesive but highly competitive, winning the Texas Class AAA high school football championship in the first year that Estacado was eligible for varsity competition.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Square dance to state champ; title: Putting the pieces together; title: Adjusting to a new school; title: A new beginning; title: No margin for error; title: Bragging rights; title: But we won; title: Seven down, three to go; title: Setting the table; title: For all the marbles; title: Slaying the Lions; title: Surviving an air attack; title: A smothering defense; title: 14-0; title: Epilogue: Changing lives; title: Appendix; title: About the author.