OPINION: 'Twelve Mighty Orphans' contains plenty of fiction

Jun. 23—Jim Dent, with 10 convictions for drunken driving, sits in a Texas prison as another of his creations hits movie theaters nationwide.

Dent wrote the 2007 book Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football. The movie version, starring Martin Sheen, Luke Wilson and Robert Duvall, is supposed to be one of summertime's feel-good shows.

Like so many movies, this one aims to fend off criticisms about inaccuracies or embellishments by saying it's merely based on a true story. Dent's book, much of it from his fertile imagination, should have a similar disclaimer.

Two of Dent's toughest critics lived in the Masonic Home and School of Texas, a Fort Worth institution whose high school football team had a terrific run during the Great Depression and wartime that followed.

"The book is full of lies," said Homer Brady, 96, who has extraordinary recall of his 11 years and 11 months at the Masonic Home, which included playing football.

Brady points to Dent writing that a Masonic Home resident named Doug Lord received a bloody compound fracture of a leg while playing in a varsity game against Highland Park in 1940. Later that season, Dent wrote, Lord attended a playoff game "wrapped in a blanket and sitting in a wheelchair."

Lord, now deceased, wasn't on the team in 1940, when he was in the eighth grade. He would later break his leg in a football scrimmage.

Why would Dent jumble events to turn Lord into an important figure during a memorable season?

Brady has a theory. In 2015, Lord told the Dallas Morning News he once provided a $5,000 loan to get Dent out of jail, money that was never repaid.

Richard Opperman, 90, is another alumnus and football player who says Dent got most of the story wrong.

"I read the book, and it was about 40 percent true," said Opperman, who lived at the home from 1939-48.

He cited Dent's account of coach Rusty Russell driving the team to games in a truck that Dent said was nicknamed "Old Blue."

Russell had been temporarily blinded by mustard gas in World War I.

"He was colorblind. He never drove that truck," Opperman said. "And I never heard of it being called Old Blue until I read the book."

Brady says other inaccuracies by Dent smeared people who are dead.

Page 28: "[Dean] William Henry Remmert was both cold-eyed and quick with the paddle, and he was known to beat the boys' backsides and send them to bed without supper," Dent wrote. Not true, Brady says. Far from sadistic, Remmert was a father figure.

Page 113: Dent uses direct quotes of a purported conversation between Russell and the team physician, Dr. E.P. Hall. "I guess we're going to be throwing the ball over the lot today. That ought to drive those rich bastards crazy," Doc Hall supposedly said. Hall never cursed.

Page 162: Contrary to Dent's account, Remmert never called player Dewitt Coulter "a big sissy," Brady said. Coulter became an all-American football player at West Point and an all-pro for the New York Giants.

Page 179: "What haunted Dewitt was the fearsome presence of Hardy Brown. They had been best friends as kids, but Hardy was now the biggest bully at the Home," Dent wrote. Pure fiction, says Brady. Brown was called Gordy, not Hardy, while at the school, and he never bullied anyone. Loaded with talent, Brown played pro football for 12 years.

Opperman said the book has many other holes.

"We've tried to figure out who are the Twelve Mighty Orphans," Opperman said.

In certain seasons, the Masonic Home fielded a team with as many as 30 players. Operman said sticking 12 orphans in the title must have been a commercial maneuver to imply the Masonic Home could barely field a team yet still contended for championships.

Even the word "orphans" is off the mark.

"There were very few true orphans there," Opperman said.

Brady agrees.

"My father died when I was 10 months old. It was the Depression, and my mother couldn't take care of us," said Brady, who had two older siblings.

Kids between 5 and 13 were eligible for admission to the home if their late father had been a member of a Freemasons lodge. The home took in Brady when he was 6.

An accurate account of the old Masonic Home and many of its residents is contained in Stella Brooks' book Unbelievable, a biography of one of its more famous graduates, Dr. Harrison Miller Moseley.

Brooks knew almost 20 years ago I had written a news story exposing embarrassing errors by Dent in another of his books, The Junction Boys.

Brooks called me to ask if I would speak with the last living members of the glory teams at the Masonic Home. They felt wounded by Dent's book.

Brady left the Masonic Home in early 1943 to join the Marines and serve in World War II. Opperman is a veteran of the Korean War.

Both told me the Masonic Home gave them an education and hope. In the winter of their lives, they don't want Dent to have the last word from prison.

Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.