Bud Shrake

Edwin A. "Bud" Shrake Jr. (September 6, 1931 – May 8, 2009) was an American journalist, sportswriter, novelist, biographer and screenwriter. He co-wrote a series of golfing advice books with golf coach Harvey Penick, including Harvey Penick's Little Red Book, a golf guide that became the best-selling sports book in publishing history. Called a “lion of Texas letters” by the Austin American-Statesman, Shrake was a member of the Texas Film Hall of Fame, and received the Lon Tinkle lifetime achievement award from the Texas Institute of Letters

Early life Shrake was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and attended Paschal High School where, along with Dan Jenkins, he wrote for the school newspaper the Paschal Pantherette.

He served in the Army and attended the University of Texas at Austin and Texas Christian University.

In 1951, Shrake joined Jenkins at the Fort Worth Press while he completed his degree in English and philosophy at TCU. Looking back at his job interview at the Press, Shrake would write “it was a rackety, dirty city paper, with the teletypes clacking and a sense of urgency everywhere. A copy editor was eating tuna fish out of a can, and the bowling writer was drinking bourbon, and I thought, 'This is the world I want to be in.' "

In 1958, Shrake moved to the Dallas Times Herald as a sportswriter, followed by a move in 1961 to the Dallas Morning News in order to write a daily sports column.

Shrake wrote about the Comanche’s final battle against the United States Army in his first novel, Blood Reckoning (1962). But Not for Love, published in 1964, looked at the post-war generation.

Sports Illustrated In 1964, Shrake moved to New York City, following Jenkins, to join the staff of Sports Illustrated, where editor André Laguerre considered him a "literary" sportswriter. Among the notable feature articles Shrake wrote for Sports Illustrated are “The Once Forbidding Land” (1965), a profile of life in the Texas Hill Country, and The Tarahumaras: A Lonely Tribe of Long-Distance Runners (1967), which he wrote after spending several weeks with the Tarahumaras in Northern Mexico.

Return to Texas Shrake returned to Texas in 1968 and continued his association with Sports Illustrated until 1979 while also writing novels and screenplays. His 1968 book Blessed McGill, set during Reconstruction, is often cited as a classic of Texas fiction, as is his 1972 novel Strange Peaches. Strange Peaches is set in Dallas just before and after the Kennedy assassination. The novel's lead character is a TV Western star who quits his show and returns to Dallas to make a documentary. Morris wrote that Shrake's story "struck a chord in me that I have never quite forgotten, having to do with how clean, funny, and lambent prose caught the mood of that moment in the country and mirrored with great felicity what we were trying to do at Harper's. To me few finer magazine essays have ever been written." and its only documented service was giving $1,000 to the Armadillo World Headquarters in 1970 to help it financially.

Other Mad Dog antics included games of “naked bridge” at Dan and June Jenkins’ house in Fort Worth; a pissing contest between Shrake, Don Meredith, and George Plimpton held on the balcony of Shrake's third-floor apartment in New York; and a multi-day bender in Austin that saw Cartwright drop out after about 27 hours, Hunter S. Thompson folding some 10–12 hours later, and Shrake and Walker being still on the town on the morning of the fourth day. Shrake's Mad Dog adventures while on the Sports Illustrated staff include the time he hired Frank Sinatra to go to Europe to photograph a heavyweight boxing match — Sinatra received press credentials but missed his flight; the time he was saved from a mob by Mohammed Ali; the time a London soccer team elected him honorary captain after winning an important contest — Shrake led celebrating team members and supporters on a midnight parade; Nelson, Kristofferson and Torn would be reunited in two made-for-TV movies written by Shrake and Cartwright, Pair of Aces (1990) and Another Pair of Aces (1991). Shrake played a bit role in the latter; he had appeared in a “small, but significant” a portion of the archive had been held by the Austin History Center

Personal life Shrake was twice married to and twice divorced from Joyce Shrake, with whom he had two sons, Ben Shrake of Fort Worth and Alan Shrake of Los Angeles. His marriage to Doatsy Shrake also ended in divorce. Shrake's hearse bore the Mad Dog Productions sign in the back window.

Shrake is buried next to Ann Richards in the Texas State Cemetery.