The Courting of Marcus Dupree

by Willie Morris

Book Overview

At the time of Marcus Dupree's birth, when Deep South racism was about to crest and shatter against the Civil Rights Movement, Willie Morris journeyed north in a circular transit peculiar to southern writers. His memoir of those years, North Toward Home, became a modern classic. In The Courting of Marcus Dupree he turned again home to Mississippi to write about the small town of Philadelphia and its favorite son, a black high-school...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0878055851
• ISBN13: 9780878055852
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.9" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

An Interesting Tale of Football and the South

I read this book again recently and it was better than I remembered. It was so interesting to see how one 17 year old boy could dominate one small town's conversations. I expected this book to be a tale of a high school football star and his recruitment, but I got more, much more. Willie Morris examines the importance of football in Mississippi and how Marcus brought blacks and whites together with his play. He had insight in to Marcus that nobody outside of his family and high school coach could have had. Overall, a great read.

A great read even if you are not a football fan

As an OU fan and a person who remember Marcus Dupree light up Norman during his brief time, I was very excited to have a little bit more background on this fascinating person.The book hits several different topics. Obviously his recruitment of many football schools at times take center stage. But much of the book also discusses the effect of a black athlete becoming a state hero in Mississippi and gaining fans of all races. The foil of Dupree's time to that of two decades earlier when three cival rights activists were brutally murdered by the Klan. And the author, Willie Morris, contrasting and comparing his life with what he sees around him while following Dupree.I recommend this book to anyone looking for a great personal account that takes you back to 1981 Mississippi, civil rights, and the power of football.

An all-time favorite

I was expecting a good read about the recruitment of a football player, and got that along with a fascinating tale of civil rights in the South. This is on my top 20 list of the best sports books ever written, partly because it's not solely about sports.

South Towards Home- W. Morris returns to a greater state.

In "North Towards Home" Mississippi born author Willie Morris suggested that he was able to fully understand his home state only after he had lived for a time away from it. In "The Courting of Marcus Dupree", the inimitable Morris returns to his beloved Mississippi, acutely and painfully aware of both the greatness and the terrible tragedy of the place which has basically made Morris the writer and person he is. Morris returned in 1980 to a radically changed and changing place, and although the locale for 80% of the book is Philadelphia, a Central Mississippi "hill" town, rather than the edge-of-the-Delta Yazoo City of his boyhood, Morris, as usual, evocatively captures the scenes, images, and activity of this town and the state as a whole, in his account of a high school senior All-State running-back and the nationwide recruiting for his talents. Actually, I remember firsthand the media sensation surrounding Marcus Dupree from Philadelphia High School in the fall of 1981, partly because I was a sophomore in high school in another Mississippi town about 150 miles away. In his descriptions of the high school and town itself, the students, the often uneasy yet usually unaffected black-white relationships by that time, and the fervor of high school athletics itself, especially fall football was all, to me, right-on-target and accurate. Morris' eye for detail in the area of social interaction; the picking up of the subtle look or gesture, or offhand comment, reported as indeed, non-fiction, rather than creating fictional characters, is one of his strong suits. The other of Morris' strengths displayed in this book, is of course his use of a main subject, the 1981 football season for Philadelphia High School, to provide a backdrop for the greater story of how race relations had changed in that town since 1964, the infamous summer of the Schwerner/Goodman/Chaney killings etc.. Morris neither moralizes nor whitewashes, in either talking about the past or the present. Morris lived in the small motel a few blocks from the center of town in getting his information, and basically reports the events Sports Illustrated feature story-style during the progression of the season, ultimately leading up to the climactic February post-season signing day and where Dupree would end up playing college football. Morris befriends not only Dupree, but also Dupree's family, his coach, a few of the recruiters, and gives a different angle on the situation from all sides. Marcus Dupree, although being from a lower-income black family, is supremely talented and is treated as a star by the entire community, with young people and adults alike asking him for his autograph. Of course all of this creates a ridiculous pressure for the 17 year old senior, and you can probably figure out the questions Morris raises and the problems which arise. But the strength of this narrative is, once again, the ability of Morris to cre

One of the all time great books about sports in society

Willie Morris is my hero. His book THE COURTING OF MARCUS DUPREE weaves the history of the civil rights movement into a compelling blow-by-blow description of big time college football recruiting. Aside from his incredible mastery of the English language, that is so vivid that you can smell the leaves on the autumn afternoons at the football practice, he makes startling connections between the past and present in the context of race relations. Willie Morris is my hero because his description of Marcus Dupree's touchdown run in the OU-Nebraska game in Lincoln during Marcus' freshman year is the greatest paragraph in American literature. Willie Morris is my hero because he loves dogs, and makes me want to quit my job, go on the road with my retriever, and write books.