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| Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football | 
 enlarge | Author: Jim Dent
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $5.75
You Save: $19.20 (77%)
New (40) Used (29) Collectible (1) from $4.19
Avg. Customer Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 122164
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 8.2 x 2.3
ISBN: 0312308728
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.33262097645315
EAN: 9780312308728
ASIN: 0312308728
Publication Date: September 4, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: GREAT Bargain Book Deal - like new, some may have small remainder mark - Ships out by NEXT Business Day - Over ONE MILLION Amazon orders filled - 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Mighty mean, mighty depressing, mostly mad about football January 16, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Set in depressing (but not necessarily economically depressed) Fort Worth, Texas 1928 to 1943, this is a initially heartwarming high school football story about a disparate, desperate crew of orphans that never really warms your heart. Dent opens with the murder of the father of four orphans in 1928. And then it's off to the school. Being outweighed, ill-equipped orphans, the Masonic Home Mighty Mites football team has three strikes against them and immediately deserve and earn a lot of sympathy. But the details make the orphans more unsavory and unsympathetic than one would imagine. They pride themselves on being mean, not just to opposing players, but also to each other. Their most reknowned pro football player earned recognition for being the "meanest" player to ever play pro football, not something I'd frame and write home about. They are brutal, blocking to injure. They perfect an almost lethal, lip-splitting hit - the Humper - that marks many of their opponents with split lips, missing teeth, and players carried from the field. Playing without faceguards, they exploit vulnerabilities of their much larger opponent, but the reader sometimes must wince at the thought of the clash. Dent repeatedly refers to "Twelve Mighty Orphans" but it was not clear to me that the team always or usually suited up only twelve players. He writes about the orphans being shoeless through half the year, but it is not clear that they ever played football that way. Their highly successful, quite humble coach, Rusty Russell, builds a lean, mean, fighting machine, but the team and their later lives show that building character may not have been so successful. Survival skills, yes. Character? I'm less sanguine. Maybe call them the Spartans, not the Mighty Mites.
On the dust cover, Brent Musburger says that the coach and team "steal your heart as they overcome every obstacle imaginable," but that is hyperbole. Yes, the odds were strongly against them. The rich and the powerful disdained the Mites and, more importantly, the Mites' success. The best teams earn resentment and that often turns into revenge, and I can easily imagine other obstacles. Plus, as other coaches noted, Russell had the advantage of 24 x 7 year-round access to and complete, absolutely authoritarian rule of the boys. Vince Lombardi's Packers had a summer idyll as compared to the training and school life the orphans suffered. Apparently, all of them started out hating the place (and, of course, missing their dead parent or parents), but they all seemed to convert to a love of the place based on a defensive, almost psychotic stance towards the more privileged, meaning the rest of the world.
The dialog often sounds like a bad Bowery Boys script. The physical and psychological abuse almost steams off the page, along with some of the excessive testosterone. One last note on poor copyediting: On p. 131, a missed kick by Jeff Brown leaves the Mites tied with Lubbock, 6 -6. Dent reminds us of that score, 6-6, on the following page. But when Lubbock's Shakespeare Sewalt scores and Lubbock converts the extra point, the score somehow becomes 13-7. Another Lubbock TD and PAT and on p. 134, the final is 20-6. Huh?
 Wonderful story of human nature March 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I purchased this book for my father for Christmas--he's a huge football fan, played high school ball in Texas years after the depression. He'd never heard of the Mighty Mites, and, were it not for a review I heard on the radio, we may never have. Turns out, he has a lot of ties to the people in the book.
The book itself is well-written, easy to read historical and personal account of the coach, the home and the boys who lived there. We get background on some families, a real history of the coach and the real-life look at the way life was in the home. IT was not pretty, it was hard indeed, but these boys were given a chance to do something beyond the school's fence. Their coach taught them how to play football, but more importantly, how to be a team and how to be men. His love for the game and the boys jumps off the page and you can feel it in every move he makes, every sacrifice he makes for the school. It follows several years of the "Mighty Mites" team, from their inception to their ultimate conclusion.
This is a wonderful story of the human condition, of overcoming odds and expectations, and how one person can make a huge difference in the lives of others when he is truly committed. Football fan or not, this is a wonderful telling of the lives of some special kids and the man who led them.
Family perspective on Orphans April 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The book was fantastic. I had no idea that the Masonic Home was so tough. Miller, Cecil and Dot were my grandmother's sisters children. I knew about their situation when I was growing up but I had never even thought that Miller and Cecil were on one of the best highschool football teams ever.
It was so interesting that I read the whole book in the space of 2 days.
My Father, Leon Pickett June 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
My Father, Leon Pickett, was the oldest living member of he Mighty Mites until April 2, 2008. I cherish this book, I cherish the wonderful memories.
Sarah (Pickett) McGarrahan
A New Favorite. July 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Maybe it's because I am from Fort Worth, and I consider myself to be an AMATEUR local historian; however, I just could not put this book down! I read the entire thing in one night, because I couldn't stop. The story is gripping...makes you laugh, makes you cry. This should definately be made into a movie, if it isn't being done already.
Occasionally I'll drive by the Masonic Home and imagine it in all its football glory.
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