Meet the Author: Alan Burton

Meet the Author & Book Signing Event at Wild Lark Books

Visiting Author – Alan Burton

Texas Tech graduate to sign books on college football

Texas Tech graduate Alan Burton will be at Wild Lark Books in Lubbock Saturday, September 10, to sign his latest three books on college football.

Volume II of “Squib-Kick It to A Fat Guy … and 701 more memorable quotes from the playbook of Coach Mike Leach’’ was published in 2021 and is the sequel to “Squib-Kick It To A Fat Guy…and 699 more memorable quotes from the playbook of Coach Mike Leach’’ (2016).

Volume II covers the “Best of Leach’’ for the past five years, as well as dipping back into his earlier days of coaching at Texas Tech and Washington State for some classic and unique perspectives on football and life. In this volume, you will read about his views on a number of subjects, including music (“Disco and Woodstock” ); his players’ lack of effort (“Fat, Dumb, Happy and Entitled’’); his unique training methods (“Leach  Beach’’); his disagreements with the media (“Tweets, Big Gulps and a Sanctimonious Troll’’); his clashes with technology and certain Texas Tech officials (“Hi-Tech, Bye-Tech’’); and a chapter that challenges the imagination that is simply titled, “Hemingway, Hot Dogs and Aliens.’’

Also available will be “Go to the Games with Humble – Kern Tips and the Golden Age of SWC radio.’’ This is a one-of-a-kind book that details the history of the Humble Oil and Refining Company’s radio broadcasts of Southwest Conference football games.

Included are rare photos, comprehensive lists of the announcers and the games they called, an actual script of a broadcast, and a timeline of memorable moments.

Humble/Enco/Exxon sponsored SWC football radio broadcasts for 44 consecutive years, from 1934 to 1977, and during most of that time, televised games were few – limited to a few national and regional games of the week.

Over the years, many famous names occupied the Humble broadcast booth, including top play-by-play man Kern Tips, the Voice of the Southwest Conference, and his sidekick, Alec Chesser. Following Tips’ death, Connie Alexander ably assumed the role of top announcer, accompanied on a frequent basis by color announcers Stan McKenzie and Dave Smith. Other broadcasters familiar to longtime  SWC football fans included the likes of Frank Fallon, Jack Dale of Lubbock, Glenn Brown, and Gene Elston.

Burton is a 1979 graduate of Texas Tech University, where he earned a bachelor’s  in English. “Volume II of Squib Kick It To a Fat Guy’’ is his eighth book; previous subjects have included Texas celebrities, and sports and music quotes.

The Sherman, Texas, native has more than 30 years of experience in the field of media/communications.