MEMO from the publisher
Hamilton Prieleaux Bee Maule was born in Texas and raised in Texas. His name comes from his great-grandfather, who was a Secretary of War for the Republic of Texas. Friends call him, and readers of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED know him, as—naturally—Tex.
In this issue he has written the lead article, This is the Game. When he started to earn his fortune, he didn't aim to be a football writer, a sportswriter or even a writer. Now all three with distinction, he was in his own words, "before settling down," a merchant seaman, insurance investigator, gymnastics instructor and, with the famous Codonas, a performer on the flying trapeze.
He was also an end for the football team of St. Mary's University in San Antonio. Following the war, Maule took a degree in journalism at the University of Texas—and went to work for the Dallas Morning News. Soon he accepted the offer of a job as publicity director for the Los Angeles Rams. He was with them during '49, '50 and '51, three of their most successful years. Back at the Dallas News, he successfully ran one of journalism's toughest obstacle courses, a bylined sports column seven days a week. Two of his feature articles, one on boxing, one on baseball, were chosen for the annual anthology, Best Sport Stories, in 1955 and 1956. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Football Writers Association.
In 1956 Tex Maule joined the staff of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. This fall, as last, he will write the weekly pro football roundups. As he has been for some time, he is now hard at work on the professional football PREVIEW, which comes two weeks from now, in our October 7 issue.
The cover subject of that issue will be the great Ollie Matson of the Chicago Cardinals, generally recognized as the best of the broken-field runners currently playing football. In addition, the pro PREVIEW will have a four-page color gallery of outstanding stars and, of course, authoritative and useful SCOUTING REPORTS on all the teams.
Reflecting the continuing growth of professional football, the National Football League in 1947 drew 1,837,437 paying customers, 2,551,236 a decade later in 1956. The reasons for this—the speed, efficiency and perfection of the pro game—are familiar facts to its widening audience, to Tex Maule and to the readers of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED who follow it each week during the season in these pages.
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