From the best-selling historical novel, based on a true story, by author (and PressBox DFW contributing sportswriter) Marjorie Herrera Lewis:
Prologue
Brownwood, Texas: 1910
My father and I climbed into our horse-and-buggy and began our three-mile trek. We had prepared for a squall moving through town, but we couldn’t have known that the wind and rain would swirl so heavily that it would nearly toss me from the cart. At one point, my father had to catch me by my wrist to keep me on board. Just as he steadied me, the wind about swept away his cowboy hat. He clutched it, continuing to steer both horses with his left hand while holding his hat firmly on his head with his right. I hunkered down beside my father beneath the comfort and protection of my mother’s homemade quilt.
“You okay under there, Petunia?” he shouted.
I pulled the cover back a bit, fought the rain from my eyes by squinting up at my father, and assured him all was well. The only thing that bothered me about the weather was that it slowed us down.
Once we arrived at the high school, he lifted me from the wagon. “Perfect timing,” he said. He squeezed the quilt to rid it of some water and then hung it over the buggy’s wooden side. “Looks like the worst has passed.”
He was right. The rain had stopped, the wind had subsided, and the Brownwood Lions had yet to kick off.
I ran to the field’s entrance ahead of my father, a giant of a man in my eyes, though slender and probably not quite six feet tall. He had a distinguished look about him, with his deep-set blue eyes, wavy jet-black hair, and Grover Cleveland mustache, as my mother, with her keen sense of humor, had described it. I’d laugh when I’d hear her remind him, “Time to trim the Grover, George.”
My father, slowed by a hip injury he had sustained a year earlier, eventually caught up with me. We entered and wove our way up the packed wooden bleachers to our regular spot, right off the press box near the far corner, if you’re looking up from the field. We settled in, and when the Lions dashed out, I jumped to my feet. Soon after, the crowd of what I figured was nearly half the town’s seven thousand residents also stood while the band led us in the school fight song:
For when those Brownwood Lions come down the field
They look a hundred per from head to heel . . .
And then the game began.
Shorty Wilkerson took the opening handoff. He was Brownwood’s best running back, but on that night, he drove me crazy.
“Keep your knees high, Shorty!” I shouted. I knew he couldn’t hear me above the cheers, the band, and the shouts of grown men yelling at the refs. But that didn’t stop me. Although I was merely ten years old, my father and I hadn’t missed a Lions football game together since 1907, and I knew right off that Shorty was far too sluggish.
“Come on, Shorty! Draw in your tackler and either speed up or slow down! Change your pace!”
I gnawed at my fingernails. I blamed it on Shorty. Then I turned to my father. “If he doesn’t sidestep or accelerate, he’ll never get into the open field.”
The men around us began laughing.
“When are you going to call the shots out there, Tylene?” Mr. Periwinkle asked.
“I’ll go down there right now if they’ll let me,” I said.
My father turned to the men. “Don’t kid yourselves. She might just take over before the second half.”
When the Men Were Gone, the best-selling historical novel by our longtime friend and sportswriting colleague Marjorie Herrera Lewis, is published by Harper Collins Publishers and can be purchased online at https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062859747/when-the-men-were-gone/ .