Sports writer was known for coverage of high school sports
Bill McMurray, a former longtimesports writer at the Houston Chronicle who wrote a seminal history of Texas high school football and played a critical role in codifying the sport’s statistical record, died Thursday in Hot Springs Village, Ark. He was 87.
McMurray had been in ill health since suffering a stroke several weeks ago in Hot Springs, where he moved after leaving the Chronicle in the mid-1990s.
McMurray worked for the Chronicle from 1960 until 1996. He also was the longtime publisher of a magazine that covered Greater Houston football. In 1984, he published a book titled “Texas High School Football” that remains a primary reference source for the game’s history.
In remarks prepared for his family before his death, McMurray said: “I leave knowing I paid all my bills through the years, never let my family go hungry, saw my daughters graduate from the University of Texas and went to church most every Sunday.
“It has been indeed a good life. See you on the next tee box.”
While high school sports coverage was and remains an entrylevel position at many newspapers, it became a career for McMurray, who covered the sport from the days of integration during the 1960s through the expansion of playoff rosters and changes in playing styles into the mid-1990s.
Dan Cunningham, the Chronicle’s former executive sports editor, said McMurray “reinvented the way that high school football was covered. When I came from San Antonio to Houston, I thought I knew how to do it but saw that this was a whole other league.”
McMurray was honored by the Texas High School Coaches Association and the National High School Coaches Association and in 1988 became one of the first sports writers elected to membership in the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame in Waco.
He also covered other sports, telling family members, “The memories are many, like watching Ben Hogan playing golf in the Houston Open, A.J. Foyt winning the Indy 500 and Tom Landry walking the Dallas Cowboys sidelines.
“But induction into the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame at Waco with Landry, Craig James, Jack Mildren, Jack Pardee and Willie Zapalac was especially gratifying.”
McMurray was born June 24, 1932, in Belton. He delivered copies of the Temple Telegram as a child, competed in rodeos as a bull rider and spent summers harvesting wheat in the Midwest and selling Bibles in Tennessee and West Virginia.
After attending Southwest Texas State Teachers College, he came to Houston after working at newspapers in Killeen and Freeport and quickly showed a flair for capturing stories that escaped the eye of others. One of the tales included in his book relates avid fans betting thousands of dollars on a 1960 championship game between teams from Bellville and Denver City.
That story and others made it into the pages of “Texas High School Football,” which included a foreword by CBS News anchor Dan Rather and ranks alongside “Autumn’s Mightiest Legions” by Harold Ratliff and the 2001 anthology “King Football” as the most accurate sources for the game’s history.
McMurray also published an annual magazine about Houston area football from 1967 through 1995 and several editions of a high school record book that covered baseball, basketball, golf, tennis, soccer, swimming, volleyball and track and field in addition to football.
In his final story for the Chronicle in 1996, McMurray wrote about covering such Hall of Fame players as Earl Campbell, Eric Dickerson, Thurman Thomas, Craig James and Warren McVea and teams such as the 1985 Yates Lions, 1982 Willowridge Eagles and the 1990 Aldine Mustangs.
“Not only football, but basketball, baseball, track, golf and tennis athletes helped make it an exciting career,” he wrote.
In retirement, McMurray played golf three to four times each week and maintained a single-digit handicap.
Survivors include his wife, Sarah Kemp McMurray; daughters, Mona Gail McMurray Bounds of Georgetown and Terri Lynn McMurray Twomey of San Marcos; two grandchildren, a greatgranddaughter and two stepchildren.
He was preceded in death by his wives Marlene Jacobs McMurray and Ruth McMurray.
Memorial services will be held at a later date at Balboa Baptist Church in Hot Springs Village. The family has designated the church for memorial contributions.