Hawthorne Collaborates on Football Stadium Photo Book

By Julianne Coyne | Tuesday, August 31, 2010 12:06 PM

Former UIL academic director Bobby Hawthorne is at it again.

This time, he’s compiled the text to a new book published by UT Press, “Home Field: Texas High School Football Stadiums from Alice to Zephyr.” The book offers photos of nearly 80 high school football stadiums and quotes collected by Hawthorne.

To compile the text for the book, Hawthorne said he made a list of people connected to high school football: football players, coaches, principals, cheerleaders, students, teachers, parents and so on.

“My job was basically just to find these people and talk to them and see what they had to say,” Hawthorne said. “That was the fun part. I did some of the interviews in person, some by telephone, some by email. I just did whatever I had to do to make this work.”

Hawthorne worked on the project for a year, talking to his connections in the various towns, calling sports writers and principals and, when all else failed, driving to the town to talk to someone off the street.

The project “reaffirmed to me that everyone has a story,” Hawthorne said.

The book is available online in hardback from UT Press at www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/wilhom.html.