League Celebrates Its History With Release of Hawthorne’s New Book
By Julianne Coyne | Wednesday, January 20, 2010 11:27 AM
In connection with the Centennial Celebration, the UIL recently released a coffee table book titled “University Interschlastic League: An Illustrated History of 100 Years of Service to Texas Schools” by former Academic Director Bobby Hawthorne.
The book is filled with stories of the League’s beginnings, photos from the 19th century to present day and detailed accounts of the major UIL developments.
“I wanted it to be a narrative, so I tried to capture the personality and essence of the people who have guided the League from its infancy into the largest organization of its kind in the world,” Hawthorne said.
The book chronicles the eras of the seven men who served as UIL directors, five of whom Hawthorne knew or worked with.
“The hardest part was writing about men whom I’ve known for as long as 30 years, complicated personalities like Bailey Marshall, who found themselves guiding the UIL during turbulent times,” Hawthorne said. “I didn’t want my personal feelings for them to cloud my judgment about how the League navigated its way through those difficult moments.”
Hawthorne details Rodney Kidd’s handling of the impact of Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, Rhea Williams’ work to fully integrate the UIL, and Bailey Marshall and Bill Farney’s guidance of the League through social change.
“What I hoped to do was to show how each man influenced and was influenced by the times in which he served,” Hawthorne said. “Part of the challenge of doing this was to reveal something about each director that shows how the journeys of the League and the director are intertwined.”
For example, in describing current UIL Director Charles Breithaupt, Hawthorne writes, “By the time he was a high school junior, Charles Breithaupt had had about all of the UIL he could stand.” He goes on to explain how Breithaupt’s frustrations with the UIL have shaped his actions as director.
Roy Bedichek, director of the UIL from 1922 to 1948, Hawthorne said, was the most important person in the history of the UIL because he created the philosophy, rules and infrastructure by which the League would operate and contests would be held.
“As one person noted, the League is indeed the lengthening shadow of Roy Bedichek,” Hawthorne said.
Academic Director Treva Dayton proofread the book and said she learned a lot from the book.
“The details of the narrative were fascinating,” Dayton said. “There were a lot of little bits that I didn’t know, like that UIL had vocational programs on the county level.”
In addition to describing the reigns of the UIL directors, the book follows athletic and academic competition milestones, such as the addition of girls’ sports and journalism contests.
“The great challenge was producing a book that would satisfy a number of constituencies,” Hawthorne said. “I wanted to make sure that academics and music were adequately represented, since most of the chapters about each director deal primarily with athletics.”
Hawthorne said he didn’t want the book to be a puff piece of the perfection of the UIL because the League hasn’t been perfect.
“When I joined the UIL in 1977, membership was open to all public school students except ‘correctives and defectives,’” Hawthorne said. “For many years, some of its more stringent rules—the amateur, transfer and summer camp rules, for example—were unreasonably punitive and petty.”
In spite of its imperfections, Hawthorne said, the people in charge of the League have always had the best interests of the students in mind.
“People might disagree with one rule or another, but they could never question the motivation for the rule, which was always to protect the integrity of the competition,” Hawthorne said.
To purchase the book, go to http://www.uil100.org/store.php. The book sells for $34.95. An autographed copy is $39.95.