The Immortal Ten

On the morning of January 22, 1927, Baylor University’s basketball team set out by bus for Austin to play the University of Texas that night. The game, however, would never be played. Ten of the twenty-two passengers died when a train hit the team’s bus at a crossing in Round Rock—the worst such accident in Texas history at the time. The students who died soon became known as “The Immortal Ten,” eulogized across the state and nation. This is their story.

In this revised edition, readers will discover more about the lives and families of the young Baylor students who died, as well as those of the twelve men who survived the accident. Additionally, several important developments in the tradition of the Immortal Ten are featured in this updated account of an episode in Baylor’s history that remains a central part of campus life today.

Author Biography

Todd Copeland graduated from Baylor University with a bachelor of arts in English and psychology in 1990. He also holds degrees in English from The University of Georgia (MA) and Texas A&M University (PhD). The author of Like All Light, winner of the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize from Gunpowder Press, he received the John H. Jenkins Research Fellowship in Texas History from the Texas State Historical Association in 2025. He has served for more than thirty years in institutional advancement at Baylor, where he additionally has taught creative writing and American literature.