Just in time for football season, these books examine high school football teams and the small towns they played in.

Our Boys: A Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen
By Joe Drape
The football team in Smith Center, Kansas, has won sixty-seven games in a row, the nation’s longest high-school winning streak. Joe Drape, a Kansas City native and an award-winning sportswriter for The New York Times, moved his family to Smith Center to discover what makes the team and the town an inspiration even to those who live hundreds of miles away. His stories of the coaches, players, and parents reveal a community fighting to hold on to a way of life that is rich in value, even as its economic fortunes decline.

Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream
By H.G. Bissinger
With frankness and compassion, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist H.G. Bissinger's national bestseller chronicles the dramatic 1988 season of the Permian Panthers – the most successful high school football team in Texas history. Friday Night Lights shows how the town's single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community in Odessa, Texas, and inspires (or shatters) the teenagers who wear the uniforms.

Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Six-Man Football Team
By Carlton Stowers
A poignant story of a small town and its unwavering support of a six-man high school football team in Penelope, Texas, this is a warm and revealing slice of life in the American heartland.

Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football
By Jim Dent
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Junction Boys comes the amazing, inspirational story of a group of orphans and the man who created one of the greatest football teams Texas has ever known.

Books by Joe Drape

To The Swift: Classic Triple Crown Horses and their Race for Glory
Edited by Joe Drape
Some of the greatest writers of horse racing have come together to create a monumental book on the Triple Crown, including the rivalries, flukes and near misses, and the legendary horses and jockeys.

Black Maestro: The Epic Life of an American Legend
By Joe Drape
Black Maestro is the complete, enthralling biography of the life of the last black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby – an inspiring rags-to-riches true story that embodies the hope and tragedy of the 20th century.

The Race for the Triple Crown: Horses, High Stakes, and Eternal Hope
By Joe Drape
Rich in detail and crackling with wit, The Race for the Triple Crown is a personal narrative that captures the affecting stories of the Thoroughbred racing world. From ostentatious owners, to radiant unrivaled horses, to young trainers trying to make a name for themselves, everyone has a gripping story, and all are in search of the sport's Holy Grail. How they get to and through the enormously famous races is a tale of action, high-stakes finance, and impossible odds.

Book descriptions provided by BookLetters.