Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football

by Jim Dent

In the depths of the Depression, people needed something to cling to. The Mites were the classic underdog, a team for the common man and woman. There was nothing glitzy about the little boys that toiled every Friday night against the bigger boys and came away the winner most of the time. It was the blue collar style of play that inspired the mass appeal. And it did not cost a great amount of money to see the boys play in 1932—a ticket to the game was a dime and a hamburger a nickel. What better time for the Mighty Mites to emerge as a kind of public property—much like Texas or Texas A&M, or, on a more national level, Notre Dame or Army. The popularity of high school football in Texas had taken off like a fiery burst from a Roman candle. Texas would always be a state of romantics searching for heroes. Naturally, the rough-hewn boys playing football would soon be idolized like the cowboys of old. This organized version of high school football had taken root in Texas only twenty years earlier. Still, it seemed that everyone wanted a piece of it. Football players had been placed on a pedestal, much like cowboys or the oil wildcatter. Texans did not need to watch B Westerns at the Saturday morning picture show to know what a cowboy looked like. In some respects, Texas was still a raw and rowdy frontier in the 1930s, and the high school kids in shoulder pads and leather helmets furthered that tough image. Stadiums started filling up right after the end of the Big War. West Texan...