Edwin "Bud" Shrake '54 dies
Renowned Texas sportswriter and author dies in Austin at age 77
by Kathryn Hopper
Edwin "Bud" Shrake '54 and former Texas Gov. Ann Richards in 2003 when he was awarded the university's Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Edwin “Bud” Shrake ’54 died May 8 in Austin. He was 77.
A Fort Worth native, he graduated from TCU with degrees in English and philosophy and spent much of his undergraduate years at The Fort Worth Press, where he worked alongside Dan Jenkins ’53.
“I was churning out something like 50,000 words a week,” Shrake said last fall, speaking at the Texas Book Festival in Austin. “That’s like writing a novel a week and that’s how I learned to write.”
Calling himself “a novelist who did sportswriting.” he spent 14 years at Sports Illustrated, shaping American sports journalism with his colorful narratives. His had an easy rapport with many athletes and celebrities and co-wrote best-selling autobiographies with country legend Willie Nelson and football coach Barry Switzer.
He is perhaps best known for co-writing Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, a golf guide that became the best-selling sports book at all time.
"He liked observing people better than he liked sports events," Jenkins said. "Every individual was a potential character to Bud. Which was why he was such a great writer."
Ever-prolific through a career that spanned five decades, he wrote at least 10 novels including Billy Boy, a coming-of-age tale about a caddy at Fort Worth’s Colonial Country Club and several Westerns including Blessed McGill in 1968 and Custer's Brother's Horse in 2007, several screenplays including “Songwriter” with Nelson and “Tom Horn,” Steve McQueen’s last Western.
In recent years, his work was collected in the anthology Land of the Permanent Wave published by the University of Texas Press.
Shrake lived in Austin, where he became the “first gentleman of Texas” escorting Gov. Ann Richards to her inaugural ball and other events.
In 2003, he was presented with the university’s Distinguished Alumnus Award and in 2005 was named to the Schieffer School’s Hall of Excellence.
"He was a closet intellectual," Jenkins said. "He was the best-read person I ever knew. He read books I wouldn't bother to run over in a car. We were pals from Junior High on. Lot of travels, lot of typing, lot of beverages, lot of deadlines, and always constant laughter.
"He wasn't a regular church-goer but he had a profound belief that when the end of this life came he would merely be going on to the next great adventure. I share that belief."