Red Cagle: West Point's Three-Time All-AmericanAuthor: Cathy Post Genre: Non Fiction - Sports Publisher: Pelican Publishing Date Published: October 19, 2019 ISBN-10: 9781455625154 ISBN-13: BUY IT AT AMAZON.COM |
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This true story of Red Cagle --College Football Player of The Year 1929-- encapsulates a rousing and collegiate tale of athletic competition, the rigors of West Point, and fateful young love. In 1930 West Point was rocked by scandal, for there was one thing Cagle loved more than football, and she would be his downfall. Cagle's untimely death made sports headlines around the world and initiated a coroner's inquest in New York City. |
Historian, biographer, and retired legal secretary, Cathy C. Post was born in Texas, but spent only three years of her life there before her family moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, her father's hometown. Mrs. Post lived in Lake Charles through college, attending McNeese State University. After graduation she taught kindergarten and high school for several years, before becoming a legal secretary for the district attorney, and later the judges of the Third Circuit Court of Appeal. Post later moved with her husband and children to Santa Fe, NM. There she began her twenty-two year career as an administrative assistant at a national laboratory. After she retired, Post began to research and write narrative non-fiction works. Her goal was to craft non-fiction in ways that appeal to a broader base – to write historical non-fiction that reads like a compelling suspense novel. Her approach centers on the importance of detailed research – "It is not enough to write a biography based solely on knowledge gleaned as a family member, especially if the subject person is already nationally famous. For the story to be told fairly and accurately, the events surrounding Red Cagle’s life and death needed to be told comprehensively, from several different perspectives—from coaches, teammates, sportswriters, the military, and the familyâ€â€”all based on 10 years of meticulous research through newspaper archives, college sources, football statistics, historical film footage, NFL historical documentation, and military records—as well as family oral history, old family photographs, letters, postcards, and correspondence. Post spent years acquiring all of Red Cagle’s own writings published in magazine articles, adding depth to his personal beliefs surrounding the game of football, his insight into the fundamentals of each play, and the way he applied these skills to a lifetime on the gridiron—and of the impact Red Cagle had on the Golden Age of Sports. For Cathy Post, a decade of research was the key to success. During those years, the author amassed over 100 original historical photographs, each nearly a century old, compiling an historical collection to be shared online with museums and universities. The true and accurate story of Chris “Red Cagle could finally be told. Red Cagle was published in October of 2019, and six weeks later, Post was a 2019 Featured Author at the Louisiana Book Festival held in Baton Rouge at the State Capitol, with 25,000 attendees annually. Her first book, Hurricane Audrey: The Deadly Storm of 1957, was honored in Washington DC, on the floor of the United States Senate, and entered into the Congressional Record, Section 35, on September 27, 2007, the fiftieth anniversary of the hurricane that killed 526 people, 200 of them children. For her efforts in preserving Louisiana history, Post was invited in 2007 to address the Louisiana Legislature--both the Senate and House chambers--the only non-elected speaker to ever be afforded that honor. Cathy C. Post's latest book--Red Cagle: West Point's Three-Time All-American--is a non-fiction sports biography, a rousing and captivating true story of college football and fateful young love wrapped around the life and times of sports legend and NFL Hall of Famer, Chris "Red" Cagle. At 5' 9" and 165 pounds, Cagle was dwarfed by the massive linemen, yet he was named College Football Player of The Year (now called The Heisman). During his stellar college football career, the nation's other universities had one common battle cry--"Beat Cagle!" When coach Knute Rockne implored his Notre Dame team to "Go out there and win one for the Gipper!" West Point's Red Cagle was the man they were trying so desperately to beat. The author returned with her husband and family to Louisiana, where she currently resides. Post continues to research and write about historical events.
