What Some Say...

So much has been said about the story, but here are a few comments to highlight:

Walter Lavender from Lorena, Texas thought 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."

I purchased this book for my father ...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. ...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.

Willliam L. Brigman, Class of 1940 says:
I played blocking back in a single wing formation on the Mighty Mites team and was at the school from 1930 until my graduation in 1940. ...we were one of the most efficiently trained teams in the arts of the fundamentals of football including blocking and tackling. ... it is not true that the reputation (Hardy Brown) earned in pro football was the reputation he earned playing high school football. I played football with Hardy from the time I was seven years old until I was 18 as a member of the class a year ahead of the so-called Twelve Orphans. We had approximately 30 kids on the traveling squad; about half of them were too small to play in most games. This left us with less than 15-20 who got much actual playing time. Russell insisted on a very rigorous dedication to learning the fundamentals of the game which was one of the main reasons we were such a good team. Coach Russell put through practice scrimmages in which we learned the proper techniques for blocking and tackling; our practice scrimmages were often harder than the actual games we played with other teams. We suffered few injuries depite our relatively small sizes because we were so well-trained. ...The coach also knew how to get the best out of his players. ...A much more accurate read about our coach and team is a chapter contained in the book written by Harold Ratliff titled I SHOOK THE HAND. Mr. Ratlifff was a sports writer in Texas for many years and wrote in this book about the great people of sports whom he met during his career. Rusty Russell was certainly one of the greats. Rather than teaching us to win by dirty tricks he taught us sound fundamentals and he later on became the coach of Southern Methodist University in the days of giants like Doak Walker and Kyle Rote. It is true that the students worked at the home under the supervision of the adult staff; we all had daily chores including cleaning, farmwork, tending the orchards, maintaining the pool and tennis courts, waiting tables, etc. which rather than being abusive helped to prepare us to take care of ourselves and become self-sufficient adults. Each team member was assigned to maintain ten-yards of the field. Taking care of the Home and ourselves gave us pride in both the institution and a sense of self-sufficiency; it also bound us together into a type of family. This was Dustbowl and Depression-era Texas. I came from the Panhandle where my family was struggling to eke out a living. If I had remained at home, I would have had similar chores with less supervision and training since my widowed mother had to toil as a practical nurse in our small town hospital... Sure, we missed our families but we were better off at the Home where we had three meals a day, supervision from well-qualified staff whose mission was to help us to grow into independent, responsible, well-educated and caring citizens. We wrote home once a week, attended church on Sunday with a rotating clergy representing several denominations, and visited our families for two weeks each year when we could afford it. ...All of us were given vocational training and experience in addition to a scholastic education and the polish of good manners. Hooliganism was not encouraged or tolerated on the football team or anywhere else at the Home.

I grew up in Ft. Worth in the late 40's & 50's and heard plenty about them from my father & his friends... am surprised there never has been anything ever written about them before..

Tommye Nichols Hullum '68 read the book and wrote in the ex-student association newsletter (pdf) "Most of the Home kids were placed at the Home because one or both of their parents were dead or divorced." Tommye's Dad was a Mason...and two weeks after turning five, the kids which included Tommye, two sisters Mary and Ruby, and two brothers, Billy and Robert, entered the home in 1955. "My Dad and uncle were at the championship game in Corsicana."

Arthur Calcaterra, graduate of the Masonic Home and School, 1996, contacted us through the website and writes: "Another connection that I have is Hardy Brown would be my first cousin twice removed. My great grandmother was Mary Ann Brown, Hardy Brown Sr. Sister. So, my grandfather and Hardy Brown were cousins. Please let me know as this project progresses. This summer the Brown family will be holding a family reunion."

And...Twelve Mighty Orphans is absolutely the best sports nonfiction book to come along since Seabiscuit, An American Legend. And they both have a similar theme throughout - that of America's love for the underdog. ....it's the back story of the underdogs that grew up at the Masonic Home and scrapped their way to winning...