Tex Maule

Hamilton Prieleaux Bee Maule, commonly known as Tex Maule (May 19, 1915 in Ojus, Florida — May 16, 1981) was the lead American football writer for Sports Illustrated in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

Maule played football (end) at St Mary's in college and served in World War II.

Maule joined the NFL's Los Angeles Rams front office, where he worked with Pro Football Hall of Famers Pete Rozelle and Tex Schramm. Later, in 1956, Maule was hired by Sports Illustrated, where he covered football for 19 years.

Maule referred to the 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Giants and the Colts as "the best game ever," according to writer Mark Bowden. Bowden wrote a 50th-anniversary book about the game using Maule's description as his title.

When the upstart American Football League (AFL) began play in 1960, Maule did not conceal his loyalty to, nor his preference for, Rozelle and the NFL. For years he ridiculed and made light of the rival AFL. For example, in a September 30, 1968 SI piece entitled The Young Generals (referenced below), supposedly about Pro Football's best young quarterbacks, he praised such mediocre NFL signal-callers as Gary Cuozzo, Randy Johnson and Kent Nix, and never even mentioned Daryle Lamonica, Bob Griese, or Joe Namath. His contempt for the AFL was mimicked by other writers who wrote derivatory columns, spreading the impression that the AFL was inferior to the NFL.

Maule gained such notoriety for his bias that it was well known to his media contemporaries. During the broadcast of the AFL's New York Jets' defeat of the NFL champion Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, announcer Curt Gowdy asked (off-air): "I wonder if that (S.O.B.) Tex Maule is watching?" The comment can be heard on existing videos of the NBC-TV network feed of the game.

Maule also was a prolific author during the late 1950s and early 1960s. One book he wrote was The Rookie (1961, David McKay Company, NY) which is about professional football.

From Sports Illustrated, Maule moved to The Dallas Morning News for three years. From Dallas, he returned to New York to write on a freelance basis. It was there he died in 1981. He was famed for saying, "It was a wonderful demonstration of boxing skill and a barbarous display of cruelty" in regards to the treatment which Muhammad Ali gave Ernie Terrell.

In 1972 he wrote a book, Running Scarred [Pelham Books 1972], about his experience having a heart attack and taking up running afterwards.