Category: Texas High School Football

Allen TX: QB Kyler Murray’s NFL rookie year highlights – 24TDs, 3,721 passing yards

Brian Bearden

Check out the rookie year highlights for Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray, who played for the Allen Eagles and Oklahoma Sooners before making his way to the NFL.

Kyler Murray finished his rookie season with 3,721 passing yards, 544 rushing yards, and 24 touchdowns.

Book Review: ‘Old Money’ by Gerald Brence

Brian Bearden
Check out Bo Carter’s book review of Coach Gerald Brence’s “Old Money.”
By BO CARTER

Any time the three main characters in a coming-of-age novel are named Kid, Mule and Runt, readers know there will be some interesting character development and content.

No, these characters are not based on three former Plano (Texas) High School football student-athletes from author Gerald Brence’s Texas High School Coaches Football Hall of Fame.
They are three fascinating city youths wandering a bit aimlessly as young teens as the novel begins and become public servants and businessmen under the watchful eye of Clinton Derryberry – the farmer/entrepreneur protagonist and surrogate father to the sometimes-unruly trio.
Their exploits form the basis of the book and some page-turning reading. Readers see their metamorphosis from basically scared and ignorant youngsters to hard-working and rough-and-tumble later teens and then young adults branching into three different directions.
Author Gerald Brence, who coached a state football championship team at Plano and reared three football-playing sons (including Big 12 Conference Sportsmanship Award finalist and Baylor standout linebacker Collin Brence) draws from the experience of watching youngsters grow into men to set some interesting scenes in the Olathe-Mission-Kansas City areas of Metro Kansas City.
One of the great characters in the book is the town bully and later millionaire Tom Wayne Rhyner (possibly named after Texas Radio Hall of Fame member and popular, retired KTCK Radio host Mike Rhyner) who is intertwined with the three main characters among street fights, tense verbal standoffs and later major business deals. Rhyner presents a perfect foil to the Kid-Runt-Mule trio and resurfaces at the most unfortunate times for the aspiring agriculturists and later business people.
As Mr. Derryberry ages and eventually succumbs, his influence on the three prime movers in the novel takes on even more significance. And a strange plot twist around the middle part of the book with Runt’s involvement and thrill seeking sets the stage for a surprise ending and some solid, end-chapters reading.
This book by Brence earns five stars in this writer’s estimation, and how did it get its title, by the way?
Runt often refers to ill-gotten gain in his later career as “old money” and evokes memories among Dallas-Fort Worth friends of the Fort Worth Club, Colonial Country Club, TCU athletics events, and other major social gatherings in the Fort Worth area.
One pundit told a friend at a major Fort Worth Club confab, probably the annual Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award: “That’s a lot of old money in here.”
This version of “Old Money” holds the reader’s interest throughout and makes book devotee’s eager for a possible sequel or similar coming-of-age novel from the laptop of Gerald Brence.
Bo Carter served as Big 12 media director for a decade, has taught at UNT, Texas Woman’s, Texas Wesleyan, worked for Mississippi State, graduated from Vanderbilt and North Texas, and works for National Football Foundation and writes for Sports Page DFW, The Texas Sports Daily.

New high school districts

Brian Bearden

DISTRICT 5-6A

Allen Eagles

Denton Braswell in Aubrey

Denton Guyer

Little Elm

McKinney

McKinney Boyd

Prosper

DISTRICT 6-6A

Coppell

Flower Mound

Flower Mound Marcus

Hebron

Lewisville

Plano Senior Wildcats

Plano East

Plano West

DISTRICT 5-5A Division I

Denton

Denton Ryan

Frisco Centennial

Frisco Heritage

Frisco Independence

Frisco Lone Star

Frisco Reedy

Frisco Wakeland

The Colony

DISTRICT 7-5A Division I

Highland Park

Longview

McKinney North

Sherman

Tyler

West Mesquite

Wylie East

DISTRICT 7-5A Division II

Denison

Frisco

Frisco Lebanon Trail

Frisco Liberty

Frisco Memorial

Lake Dallas

Lovejoy in Lucas

Princeton

Prosper Rock Hill Blue Hawks

DISTRICT 4-4A

Aubrey

Celina

Krum

Sanger

Van Alstyne

DISTRICT 5-4A

Caddo Mills

Farmersville

Nevada Community

Quinlan Ford

Sunnyvale

Wills Point

DISTRICT 7-4A

Anna

Argyle

Carrollton Ranchview

Kaufman

Melissa

Paris

Terrell

DISTRICT 5-3A

Bonham

Commerce

Howe

Mineola

Mount Vernon

Pottsboro

Rains in Emory

Winnsboro

DISTRICT 8-3A

Bells

Blue Ridge

Gunter

Leonard

Lone Oak

S&S Consolidated

Whitewright

– Compiled by Brian Bearden

See official lists at Realignment.uiltexas.org

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