'Smokin’ Hot: A Texas High School Football Story'

In Smokin’ Hot: A Texas High School Football Story, photographer Kevin Vandivier turns his attention to the Lake Travis High School Cavaliers football team. Covering the 2004 and 2005 seasons, Vandivier documents a remarkable turnaround that saw the Cavaliers, who had known little previous football success, capture back-to-back district titles and, in 2005, a bi-district championship.

Vandivier is a local photographer with some impressive photography credits on his résumé, including a cover for LIFE magazine as well as work for National Geographic. With nearly 30 years of experience, he notes in his acknowledgments that this project provided him with the best set of images he had ever captured for any one single project. Keep in mind that this is a man who has photographed Hurricane Gilbert in Mexico and a volcanic eruption on Mount Kilauea in Hawaii.

Many of the photos in this collection are impressive. Vandivier has a keen talent for capturing the eyes of these athletes, and as anyone who knows much about sports and athletes can tell you, it is an athlete’s eyes – more specifically, his onfield vision – that separates the truly gifted from the rest of his fellow competitors. Vandivier often trains his lens on the eyes of these football players, whether they are dodging an onrushing tackler or zeroing in on the opposing ball carrier.

The problem with this book lies in the text. Vandivier does his own writing, and it does a disservice to his photography. One really has to wonder if, as Vandivier claims, Lake Travis High head coach Jeff Dicus and God are alike in that both “love it when told ‘it can’t be done.’” Comparisons of any coach to any deity are dangerous and just plain wrong. Vandivier relies far too heavily on sports clichés: By the end of the second page there are already six references to “warriors,” “heart,” and “warrior hearts.” The captions underneath each photo often take away from the image. The quarterback who “not only could pass and run, he was also strong as an ox.” The coach who “never let the team forget the cost of the freedom to play football in America.” The win that made Vandivier hear U2’s “Beautiful Day” playing over and over again in his head.

Vandivier would have simply been better off having someone else write his text. His book, too, might have come off as more universal – after all, it is a story of overcoming incredible odds – had he chosen to include a few less photos of his son, a player on the team, and daughter, one of the team’s cheerleaders. As it is, this book seems a bit too much like the pet project of a man who wanted to memorialize his kids’ high school experience.