Michael Hurd

Advisor | The Woodlands

Michael Hurd is a native Houstonian writer and historian who recently retired as the first director of Prairie View A&M University’s Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture (TIPHC), which is digitally documenting 500 years of black history in Texas. He is an Air Force/Vietnam veteran, recipient of the Air Force Commendation Medal, and a graduate in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.

As a sports writer, Michael was a member of the 1982 founding staff at USA Today, but started his career at the Houston Post. He has also written for the Austin American-Statesman, and Yahoo Sports. Throughout his career, he covered a wide variety of sports events including the National Basketball Association (eight Finals), the National Football League (two Super Bowls), Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the 1984 Summer Olympics, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), including major football bowl games and postseason basketball tournaments including the Final Four.

A resident of The Woodlands, Michael has authored three books, including his most recent “Thursday Night Lights, the Story of Black High School Football in Texas.” His groundbreaking first book, “Black College Football, 1892-1992,” is the only book that comprehensively documents the history of football programs at historically black colleges. The book was a primary source in 1996 when the National Football Foundation began inducting black college players to the College Football Hall of Fame.

He serves on the selection committee for the Black College Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, is a board member for the Writers’ League of Texas, and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.

He has spoken on various black history topics to community groups and at high schools as well as colleges and universities including the University of Texas-Austin, UT-San Antonio, UT-El Paso, and has been a keynote speaker for various events including the East Texas Historical Association Fall Meeting, the Prairie View Interscholastic League Coaches Assn. Hall of Honor banquet, and the New Braunfels MLK Association’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march and program.

Michael was featured in the films “First and Goal in the Bronx,” a CBS Sports documentary about the first black college football game played in New York City – Grambling vs. Morgan State at Yankee Stadium in 1968, and the documentary “Rites of Autumn, the Story of College Football.” He was also a panelist in Washington, D.C. for the National Archives program, “Breaking the Line: Black College Football and the Civil Rights Movement.”