Game over. Stephenville 15, Brownwood 14.
Light-headed, I turned toward my family. I could see the crowd behind, standing motionless, shock splashed across nearly every face. Even the players looked frozen. My mind replayed John asking me: Can you be perfect? It was a paralyzing moment. And then the band began to play. The sound of the fight song filled the stadium. I’d never before heard the crowd sing the fight song after a loss. I stood at attention, just as all others on the Brownwood side had, and once the song ended, my father limped heartily to me. We hugged, and the crowd broke into cheers.
Lions rule!
The squad, about to begin the midfield congratulatory handshakes, joined in the chant, and I had to ask myself, Do they finally understand why we had to play?
Before I could acknowledge the crowd, I was swarmed by newsmen. I reached into the basket lying on the ground to fetch my belongings. Clutching my purse and heels, I attempted to break my way through the cluster. I begged reporters to give me a few minutes, but before I could escape the masses, I noticed the boys had already shaken hands with Stephenville and had begun making their way to the locker room. A few yards away I spotted Moonshiner. We made eye contact, but in an instant, he was lost among the throng. I knew Roger belonged with us, and I was heartbroken.
Eventually I made it to midfield where Coach Black awaited.
“You know I didn’t cotton to playing against a lady, but I got to admit, you’re a mighty fine coach,” he said. “Can’t say I seen this coming.”
After the handshake, I headed for the field house. I was stopped a number of times by the newsmen, but I continued to ask each one if they would give me a few minutes to address my team. I promised them I’d answer every question once they were invited into the locker room.
About five minutes after the boys had entered the field house, I arrived. Moose was standing outside the door. As I approached, Moose cracked the door open, took a quick peek, then told me it was fine for me to enter. For the first time, I was outwardly nervous. I was trembling. I let them down.
I walked in to find the room eerily silent, and my stomach sank. But when I walked up to the boys, they stood and began to clap and shout in unison.
“Coach!”
“Whose coach?”
“Our coach!”
They repeated it three times.
Fighting tears, I turned to the boy standing closest to me and hugged him. It was Bobby Ray. And then Jimmy approached me.
“Coach,” Jimmy said, “we nearly beat one of the best teams in the state of Texas because you know the game better than anyone in town. You persisted, and when you made Bobby Ray sit out the end of the game, it finally hit us. It never really was just about football, was it?”
My eyes welled with tears. I shook my head and whispered, “No.” I couldn’t bring myself to say anything more. Instead, I put my arms around each boy and hugged him as if he were my own son. Then I regained my composure and opened the locker room door. A trail of newsmen elbowed their way in—men with pens and paper, cameras and microphones.
“Miss Tylene, what was it like coaching your first football game?” a reporter shouted.
“How did the boys react to you after the game?” shouted another.
Before I could answer, I noticed over the shoulder of a reporter, off a slight distance, Alex was watching. I smiled and nodded my acknowledgment. He smiled, tipped his cap, turned and walked away.
“Do you plan on continuing?”
“What’s it like to lose?”
I answered all and stayed until I was asked the final question by a reporter from Fort Worth.
“Miss Tylene, it couldn’t have been easy. Why’d you do it?”
I gathered my thoughts for a moment and then replied. “No mother—no parent—should ever be left to wonder, If only. You see, ‘If only’ is the cruelest of all declarations. If only I could have protected my son. If only I had my son for one more year or even for just three hours on a Friday night.”
With that, I thanked the remaining reporters, and John and I made our way to our truck. My eyes were still seeing spots, and my ears were still hearing the poof of a camera’s flashbulb. The parking lot was mostly empty but for Wendell’s truck and the cars of a few lingering reporters.
John opened my door and kissed me on my cheek just before I got in. I was drained—physically, but mostly emotionally. Once in the truck, I sank into the comfort of our solitude.
As we entered our house, I walked to our bedroom. I sat alone at the foot of the bed, then reached down, opened the left bottom dresser drawer, and pulled out a small hand-carved wooden box, a box I had not opened since I had neatly tucked it away the summer of 1927—seventeen years ago. With the unopened box resting on my lap, I looked up and saw John standing within the frame of our bedroom door. He walked in and sat beside me.
I opened the box and took out the only pair of white infant booties I had ever crocheted. They had never been worn. I clutched them to my chest and closed my eyes. John wrapped his left arm around my shoulders and asked, “What position do you think Billy would have played?”
Acknowledgments
It is with immense gratitude that I thank and acknowledge the following for helping me pull this novel together: Jean Van Waters, Diane Les Becquets, Ben Nugent, Jean Telarik Yodice, Dallas Huston, Mitch Moore, Mike Redwine, the librarians at Brownwood High School, Howard Payne University, the Brownwood Public Library History and Genealogy Research Branch, Davis-Morris Funeral Home, the Reverend Richard Hetzel, Andrea Somberg, Lucia Macro, Shane Bevel, and everyone associated with the Mountainview MFA program.
I’d like to thank my sister, Angela Butkus, for listening to my stories for all these years and my parents, William and Corine Herrera, for their love, support, and encouragement. I’d also like to thank my siblings Judy Baird, Monica Lazzara, and Bill Herrera.
And for putting up with me every day, I’d like to thank my husband, Chuck Lewis, and my daughters, Monica (and son-in-law Jake) Kirkendoll and Katharine Lewis. What made this journey extra special is that you were with me along the way. I love you all.
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About the Author
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Meet Marjorie Herrera Lewis
About the Book
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Why I Wrote About Tylene
Why I Became a Football Coach
Author Q&A
About the Author
Meet Marjorie Herrera Lewis
MARJORIE HERRERA LEWIS knew early on that she wanted to be a sportswriter. After several years at small newspapers, at age twenty-seven, Marjorie began working at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Two years later, she was a beat writer—working with veteran beat reporter David Moore—for the Dallas Cowboys. Marjorie later joined the Dallas Morning News sportswriting staff. Throughout her career, Marjorie covered college and professional sports, including the Texas Rangers and Dallas Mavericks, as well as tennis and golf. She also covered the Super Bowl, Wimbledon, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, and several college bowl games.
After researching and writing her debut novel, When the Men Were Gone, Marjorie became inspired by her heroine Tylene’s journey, and she developed a burning desire to coach football herself. She was added to the Texas Wesleyan University football coaching staff on December 7, 2016. Marjorie worked with defensive backs on the field and with the entire team as an academic adviser.
Marjorie holds BS, MA, and MFA degrees. She says that Arizona State University prepared her to be a sportswriter, the University of Texas at Arlington prepared her to be a university professor, and Southern New Hampshire University prepared her to be a novelist. Marjorie is married, and she and her husband, Chuck, have two grown daughters and one son-in-law.
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About the Book
Why I Wrote About Tylene
I’ve often been asked how I came across the story of Tylene
Wilson, a woman who coached football in Brownwood, Texas, during World War II. My answer is simple: serendipity.
After decades of cajoling by my allergy doctor, I finally relented and scheduled myself for allergy-shot testing. My nurse, Jean Van Waters, commented on the T-shirt I was wearing, which declared me a Tulsa Golden Hurricane football fan. “I’m a football fan, too,” Jean said. “The women in my family all love football. Probably because my great-aunt was a football coach during World War II.” I just about fainted. Harkening back to my days as a sportswriter, I began a stream of questions.
By the time my head had stopped spinning and my adrenaline had stabilized, I stopped asking questions and just let Jean talk. The more she told me about her great-aunt, the more the story resonated with me. I began to believe I was the only one who could tell Tylene’s story with any level of authenticity. In a way, I had lived a similar story, only forty years later and not as a coach but as a sportswriter. Tylene and I had both walked into life experiences we had not sought out, and in many ways we had not been welcome.
I was a sportswriter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram when in 1986 I was asked to temporarily cover the Dallas Cowboys beat during the off-season. My job was to monitor the beat—handle any press announcements, stop by the training facility to see if anything interesting was going on, and check up on any contract talks or free-agent signings. But I loved the thrill of competition, so I set out to develop sources and break stories. I broke a few that caught the attention of my sports editor, Bruce Raben. Bruce liked my tenacity, so he handed the full-time beat to me. What he did not know at the time was that I didn’t want the beat. And the first person to find out was Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm.
I was in the Cowboys public relations office of Greg Aiello when Tex stopped by. He said he’d heard I’d been given the beat. Always the proud Cowboys executive, Tex asked me how it felt to be a beat writer for the best team playing the best sport in the world. My honest reply was not well received. “I prefer college football,” I told him. “I didn’t ask for this assignment, and I’d rather not have it.” His face became fireball red, and I realized that perhaps honesty wasn’t valued as highly as I’d expected. He went on to tell me I was a fool. When he finished scolding me, I asked him why he cared so much. “Does the idea of a twenty-nine-year-old woman, five feet, two inches, give you comfort? Because if my appearance leads you to believe I’m a pushover, you do know you’d be wrong.”
From then on, Tex, Coach Tom Landry, and all the other coaches and staff members treated me respectfully and professionally. One football player, however, had a different point of view, and he was eager to share it. I was covering my first training camp at California Lutheran College in Thousand Oaks, California, when I walked from the field at the end of practice alongside a free-agent linebacker who turned to me and said, “You don’t belong here.” I looked at him and said, “I’ve seen you practice, and I’ll be here a lot longer than you will.” He was cut the next day, and I never saw him again. Despite his point of view, at least that football player was honest, and frankly, I appreciated it.
Like Tylene, I had grown up a football fan and had learned the game from my father, William Herrera. Like Tylene, I did not seek my job. And like Tylene, I endured ridicule, even from someone I had thought of as a friend. Tylene’s story resonated with me because we were both unwitting trailblazers. And like Tylene, I had a backstory.
As we see in the book, Tylene wanted the boys to play football—not because she wanted to coach them, but because she didn’t want them to lose their youth prematurely, as her son had. Her son, Billy, died only minutes after his birth. He would have been a senior in high school during the season that Tylene became coach. As Tylene’s grandniece Jean told me, Tylene and John desperately wanted to have children.
I, too, endured a private personal struggle—one my colleagues did not know about—while covering the Cowboys. I, too, wanted to become a mom. I had a miscarriage early on, and while I was a Cowboys beat writer, I had undergone surgery that left my husband, Chuck, and me with no more answers than before it. I was also hospitalized on three occasions—the last time, I awoke to find my husband at the foot of my bed telling me he could no longer stand to see me suffering. He said it was time that we forget about becoming parents. It was a chilling moment.
Although we eventually had two daughters, I understand Tylene in many ways. I believe Tylene’s life must be memorialized. Tylene was a woman whose life transcended football, who discovered what she was capable of even when she didn’t seek it, and who brought joy to a grieving town during a time of war, even if only for three hours on a Friday night.
This is why I am telling her story.
Why I Became a Football Coach
I became a football coach for one reason: Tylene inspired me.
Like Tylene, I never expected to be a football coach, nor did I grow up with the desire to become one. But as I researched and wrote Tylene’s story, I realized that she and I possessed many similar traits, and I thought, Wow, I’d like to do this, too. Like Tylene, I love teaching and contributing to the growth and development of our next generation. And like Tylene, I love football. So in December 2016, I reached out to Texas Wesleyan University, a small school that was resurrecting its football program.
Texas Wesleyan had last played football in 1941. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, many of the team members opted to enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces, leaving college and football life behind. As a result, the program disbanded.
Under the bold leadership of university president Fred Slabach, Wesleyan revived its football program in the fall of 2016, beginning with its initial red-shirt class—a group of committed young men who would lay the foundation for the school’s 2017 football season debut.
When I learned that Texas Wesleyan University was looking to add to its coaching staff, I contacted the head coach. I made it clear that because I respect the journey he and his coaches had taken to develop their careers, I would volunteer for a season and earn my way after that.
I was appointed to the coaching staff—one of seven volunteers—on December 7, 2016, the date that also changed the trajectory of Tylene’s life, and I had the honor of taking the field with the team when they played their first home game before roughly five thousand fans, seventy-six years after they had played their last game.
A reporter told me his research confirmed that I was the only woman in the country coaching at any level of college football that season. I was taken aback. And then I thought of Tylene. I wondered what she would think of my experience, many decades after she so bravely took on a task far beyond the gender expectations for a woman in the 1940s. She would discover that much had changed . . . and much had not.
Like we see in Tylene’s story, she had the support of her husband, John. I, too, was enthusiastically supported by my husband, Chuck. Tylene loved Brownwood High School and had the support of its principal. I love Texas Wesleyan University, and I had the support of Fred Slabach as well as Steve Trachier, the school’s athletic director. The football players came to respect Tylene. I, too, felt the respect of the young men on our team, young men who responded to me without qualm regarding my gender and my role in their instruction. Because of what I saw in these young men, I truly believe that women in football—and not just in football—will be more warmly welcomed in male-dominated fields.
But I would be remiss if I did not tell my whole story, and this is where Tylene’s experience and mine converge on the negative side. As her story shows, Tylene was criticized and dismissed by some who did not appreciate her involvement in football. I, too, had that experience.
First, however, I must say that I worked directly with the defensive backs coach, Quincy Butler, a man of honor, knowledge, and passion for football and for his players. I learned so much by working with Quincy—not only about how to coach defensive backs, but also how to relate to young football players. Quincy, a former NFL defensive back and an All-Conference c
ornerback while at TCU, was a players’ coach, someone whom young men could look up to. Football needs—and the football world should demand—there always be a place for the Quincy Butlers among us.
Unfortunately, I sensed that, unlike Quincy, the head coach and the defensive coordinator did not know how to best utilize my skills, and despite my many suggestions, they did not appear interested in figuring it out.
Still, their dismissiveness did nothing to diminish my love for Texas Wesleyan University, a gem in the heart of Fort Worth. I will be forever grateful for having had the opportunity to be a part of such a historical season, and I look forward to more women following in Tylene’s footsteps.
Author Q&A
Q: Marjorie, some of our readers might be surprised to discover that Tylene Wilson is not an invention of your imagination! What brought you to tell her story?
A: Telling Tylene’s story, for me, was a result of my own life experiences. I don’t think I could have told her story had I not known what it was like covering college and professional football during a time that a woman in a sports department was extremely rare. So when I discovered Tylene’s story from her own grandniece, I instantly fell in love with it.
Although by the time I discovered what Tylene had done during World War II, she had already passed on—a result of Parkinson’s disease, in 1992 at the age of eighty-eight. John had spent many years caring for her throughout her illness, but he predeceased her. I wish every day that I’d had the chance to meet her, but I loved this journey of discovering her life story. She was an incredible woman.
Q: How did you draw on your imagination to tell Tylene’s story? Do you feel you struck the right balance between what was true and what your imagination created?
When the Men Were Gone Page 17
