New Releases by Al Pickett

Strongly inviting comparisons with the movie Remember the Titans, this book by veteran sports journalist and author Al Pickett is an inspiring, insider account of the Lubbock Estacado Matadors, who came together for love of a sport to become Texas State AAA High School football champions in their first year of eligibility. In the late 1960s, the Lubbock Independent School District was pressured by the courts to address its still-segregated system, and its response was the new, integrated Estacado High School. Estacado’s first head football coach, Jimmie Keeling, formed and fielded a team of young men who had never played together before and who came from widely differing parts of the social spectrum. Remarkably, he forged a unit that was not only cohesive but highly competitive, rolling undefeated toward a historic championship finish. Mighty, Mighty Matadors features action-packed accounts of Estacado’s championship season, but even more, it offers heartwarming glimpses of the lifelong friendships formed by players who joined hands across racial and social divides to accomplish a goal. In the process, they helped bring pride and unity to their hometown.

Coach Emory Bellard spent a remarkable 43-year football coaching career at both the high school and college level, where he helped teams win 12 district championships, five regional titles, and three state championships in 21 seasons as a high school coach in Texas. He also won five Southwest Conference crowns and two national titles during his collegiate career as an assistant coach at the University of Texas and as a head coach at Texas A&M and Mississippi State. Bellard collaborated with veteran sports writer Al Pickett, to tell the remarkable story of his career for the first time, including how he invented the wishbone offense when he was an assistant to Darrell Royal at Texas and why he resigned in the middle of the season as head coach at Texas A&M. Coach Emory Bellard spent a remarkable 43-year football coaching career at both the high school and college level, where he helped teams win 12 district championships, five regional titles and three state championships in 21 seasons as a high school coach in at Ingleside, Breckenridge, San Angelo and Spring Westfield in Texas. He also won five Southwest Conference crowns and two national titles during his collegiate career as an assistant coach at the University of Texas and head coach at Texas A&M and Mississippi State. It was during his stint at Texas in 1968 that he invented the wishbone, an offense that revolutionized college football and produced seven national championships between 1969 and 1979. Al Pickett, a veteran Texas sports writer and sportscaster is the author of two other books, "Team of the Century," which chronicles the seven years that Chuck Moser spent as the head football coach at Abilene High, and "The Greatest Texas Sports Stories You''ve Never Heard." He is the host of "Let''s Talk Sports with Al Pickett," on ESPN 1560 Radio in Abilene, Texas, and the play-by-play voice for Abilene High and Hardin-Simmons University athletics. He is also a regular contributor to "Dave Campbell''s Texas Football" magazine and "Red Raider Sports," magazine. He was named the recipient of the Outstanding Media Service Award from the American Southwest Conference in 2004. Pickett is chairman of the Big Country Sports Hall of Fame in Abilene and also serves on the selection committee for the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco.

Like Friday Night Lights did years ago, Brother''s Keeper tries to put the reader in the mind of a high school football player during one of the most exciting times of his young life. Listening to the words and thoughts of some fo the most impactful Abilene football players of the past 50 years is a rare treat -- and the central theme, that of protecting and working for your teammate, is a lost art in a me-first sporting world. This book captures the best of high school football and the best of the city of Abilene.

The longest field goal in the history of football was kicked in Texas. But did you know it was love that first led a Swedish soccer player to Texas, where he still lives more than thirty years after his record-setting 69-yard field goal? That story is just one of dozens of unusual and behind-the- scenes stories veteran sports writer and broadcaster Al Pickett has compiled in more than twenty years of covering sports in Texas. Did you know that a tragedy on that same day that Ove Johansson kicked his record field goal changed University of Houston coach Art Briles'' life forever? Did you know the greatest high school football coach in Texas history never played high school football himself? Or a case of déjà vu helped a Texan win the Masters golf championship? After each chapter of The Greatest Texas Sports Stories You''ve Never Heard, sports fans in the Lone Star State are certain to say, "I didn''t know that." AL PICKETT writes for Dave Campbell''s Texas Football, Red Raider Sports, and Total Texas Baseball magazines, and he hosts a daily radio show in Abilene. He is also the author of Team of the Century: The Greatest High School Football Team in Texas (State House Press, 2004) and Wishbone Wisdom, Emory Bellard: Texas Football Visionary as Told to Al Pickett (State House Press, 2010).

Fifty years ago Abilene High School, under legendary Coach Chuck Moser, became a football dynasty in Texas. Moser moved to Abilene in 1953 at age thirty-four. What followed were seven of the most amazing years in the rich history of Texas high school football. The 1954, 1955, and 1956 teams won state championships. From 1954 to 1957 the Eagles won an incredible forty-nine consecutive games. Abilene captured six district titles in a row in a rugged West Texas league known as the Little Southwest Conference. In Moser''s seven years, Abilene won seventy-eight games and lost only seven. In its 1999 wrap-up of the twentieth century in Texas, The Dallas Morning News designated the Eagles of 1954-57 as the "Team of the Century" in high school football. Veteran sports writer Al Pickett explores how Moser worked his magic to galvanize an entire community in support of his program and turn an otherwise ordinary group of high school kids into the best football team in Texas history.