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Earl Campbell: Yards After Contact - Hardcover | Diverse Reads

Earl Campbell: Yards After Contact

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Earl Campbell was a force in American football, winning a state championship in high school, rushing his way to a Heisman trophy for the University of Texas, and earning MVP as he took the Houston Oilers to the brink of the Super Bowl. An exhilarating blend of biography and history, Earl Campbell chronicles the challenges and sacrifices one supremely gifted athlete faced in his journey to the Hall of Fame. The story begins in Tyler, Texas, and features his indomitable mother, a crusading judge, and a newly integrated high school, then moves to Austin, home of the University of Texas (infamously, the last all-white national champion in college football), where legendary coach Darrell Royal stakes his legacy on recruiting Campbell. Later, in booming, Luv-Ya-Blue Houston, Campbell reaches his peak with beloved coach Bum Phillips, who celebrates his star runner's bruising style even as it takes its toll on Campbell's body.

Drawing on new interviews and research, Asher Price reveals how a naturally reticent kid from the country who never sought the spotlight struggled with complex issues of race and health. In an age when concussion revelations and player protest against racial injustice rock the NFL, Campbell's life is a timely story of hard-earned success--and heart-wrenching sacrifice.


ISBN-13: 9781477316498

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Publication Date: 09-05-2019

Pages: 344

Product Dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

Asher Price is a state desk reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. He is also author of Year of the Dunk and coauthor of The Great Texas Wind Rush. He lives in Austin with his wife and daughter.

What People are Saying About This

Justin Driver

Whenever I watched Earl Campbell play on television, his impossibly powerful runs seemed almost folkloric—John Henry wielding a stiff-arm. This splendid biography conveys not only Campbell’s superhuman feats, but—even more impressively—his underlying humanity. In Asher Price’s formidable hands, Campbell becomes a prism for examining our nation’s struggle for racial equality and the punishments inflicted by our nation’s most popular sport. Price writes with verve and style and has succeeded in doing nothing less than establishing a new standard for sports biography.

Raymond Arsenault

Earl Campbell’s saga as an African American sports celebrity in the largely unreconstructed State of Texas contains elements of triumph and tragedy, and Asher Price’s extraordinary new biography captures it all with riveting prose, gifted storytelling, and a carefully crafted analysis of race, region, and football mania. Not since the appearance of H. G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights have we seen such an important and insightful book on the world of Texas football.

Chris Tomlinson

Asher Price profiles not only the greatest running back ever but the football-infused Texas culture that produced, rewarded, and exploited him. From Earl Campbell's birth in segregated Tyler to his retirement in a wealthy Austin suburb, Price captures every telling detail in his painstakingly reported and beautifully crafted book. Anyone interested in football, and its future, needs to read Earl Campbell: Yards after Contact to understand the sport's problems and promise.

Dave Zirin

Earl Campbell is a towering figure in the history of sports. Finally, there is a book worthy of the man.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Part I: Tyler
  • Part II: Austin
  • Part III: Houston
  • Epilogue
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Index