Jack Trice, Iowa State’s first black athlete and namesake of the university’s football stadium, is the subject of a new children’s biography by Ames resident Steve Jones.

The book, titled “Football’s Fallen Hero: The Jack Trice Story,” tells about the life of Trice, who died in 1923 at age 21 from injuries sustained in a football game played against the University of Minnesota.

“Well, I think the main reason I wrote the book was because I realized that we didn’t know much about him,” Jones said.

Jones, who previously worked at ISU News Service, was intrigued by the story surrounding Trice.

“I saw a photo and thought that he looked like quite a nice person,” Jones said.

Curiosity set in and research began. Jones pored over documents in both Minnesota and Iowa, in addition to talking to some of Trice’s few surviving friends. The book details Trice’s life, telling of his heritage and dedicated parents.

“They were a hard-working, nice family,” Jones said.

The book deals mostly with Trice’s time at ISU. At the time of his death, Trice was a sophomore and viewed as the best lineman on the football team, Jones said.

Jones’ favorite tale about Trice describes the night before the game that would be his last. Trice wrote a note to motivate himself — he had not been allowed to eat with his teammates because the dining room refused to serve blacks. In addition, he was feeling the pressure of the big game.

Jones included some passages from the note in his book.

“My thoughts just before the first real college game of my life,” Trice wrote. “The honor of my race, family and self is at stake. Everyone expects me to do big things.”

The next day Trice suffered injuries in the third quarter that would prove fatal, Jones said. He died two days later, on Oct. 8, 1923.

“His death will always be a mystery,” Jones said. “We will probably never know the truth.”

The book was published by Perfection Learning Corporation of Logan. It is available at the University Book Store, where sales have been steady since the arrival of the biography, said Maraca Lukacik, general books floor manager at UBS.

“We try to keep as many local authors in stock as we can,” she said.

Lukacik also said the store carries the book because there are not many written about the university and its students.

“It is nice to hear about local stories,” she said.