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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. It was during Bellard's 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. Coach Bellard passed away in 2011.

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.” Pickett 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.

176 Pages. Paperback. Index. 19 B&W Photographs. 4 Drawings. 2 Tables.

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Although Texas A&M has changed dramatically through the years as it evolved into a first-class university, it has managed to retain its distinctive cultural heritage and hold on to the Aggie Traditions which have defined and enriched the school and given it character and soul. Traditions such as Aggie Muster, Yell Practice, and Silver Taps are as important to today's Aggies as they were to yesterday's. At the same time, new "traditions" are gradually blended with the old to accommodate changing times and emerging sentiments. When Aggies talk about the "Spirit of Aggieland," it is more than a school song. It is a sense of pride and purpose in what makes the school unique, an enduring experience, an abiding impression. Graduates do not become ex-Aggies after they leave Aggieland but rather "former students." They are expected to be Aggies the rest of their lives. In words and pictures, Aggie Savvy: Practical Wisdom from Texas A&M seeks to celebrate that spirit and that uniqueness by focusing on the practical wisdom and life lessons—profound and trivial, philosophical and whimsical—that can be gleaned from the culture, the environment, and the lore at Texas A&M.

GLENN DROMGOOLE, Class of '66, is a former editor of The Battalion and the Bryan-College Station Eagle and was named to the Texas A&M University Journalism Hall of Honor.

Pages 112. Hardcover (printed case). 52 Color Photographs.

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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.

AL PICKETT has spent the last thirty plus years covering high school football from a unique perspective as both a radio announcer and sports editor in Texas, Arkansas, and Kansas. He owns and operates Pickett Publications and Sales and hosts a radio sports show in Abilene, Texas. Pickett is also author of The Greatest Texas Sports Stories You've Never Heard (State House Press, 2007) and Wishbone Wisdom Emory Bellard: Texas Football Visionary (State House Press, 2010).

192 Pages. Paperback. 50 B&W Photographs. 4 B&W Illustrations.

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The Greatest Texas Sports Stories You've Never Heard is a collection of stories about the famous and the not-so-famous sports figures from Texas. " It deserves a place in every good sports library." -Dave Campbell, Founder of Texas Football magazine

AL PICKETT has spent the last thirty plus years covering sports from an unique perspective as both a radio announcer and a sports editor in Texas, Arkansas, and Kansas. He owns and operates Pickett Publications and Sales and hosts a radio sports show in Abilene, Texas. Pickett 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 (State House Press, 2010).

204 Pages. Paperback. 33 B&W Photographs. 2 Illustrations.

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In this entertaining yet informative book on Texas high school mascots, Sledge traces the lore and the legends, the popular and the pertinent, the original and the obscure, the conventional and the controversial. You will read about Mighty Mites, Porcupines, Battlin' Billies, Wampus Cats, Hippos, Kangaroos, Gorillas, Sharks, Cottonpickers, Roughnecks, Blizzards, and even one school that goes by the Daisies (yes, it's a girls' school). Chapters are devoted to birds, canines, felines, and other critters, as well as historical figures, ranch icons, and, of course, Indians. The most popular team names in Texas are compared with the top choices for U.S. colleges, and readers are invited to have a little fun in matching mascots to movie clues and potential headlines. Nearly every high school in Texas is listed at least twice—by school and by mascot.

Historian ROB SLEDGE is a former Red Ant, Eagle, Scorpion, Pirate, Red Fox, Mustang, and Longhorn. He has taught Plainsmen, Indians, Mustangs, and Broncos.

184 Pages. Paperback. 207 B&W Illustrations.

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The Dallas Cowboys' lively history is chronicled in a collection of more than five hundred quips and quotes from players, coaches, owners, broadcasters, and writers. Organized chronologically, the quotations provide a colorful record of the ups and downs of one of the best-known franchises in professional sports - and must reading for the die-hard Dallas Cowboy fan.

ALAN BURTON is the author of four other books, including 'Til the Fat Lady Sings: Classic Texas Sports Quotes and Rave On: Classic Texas Music Quotes. Burton lives in Denison, Texas.

144 Pages. Paperback. Index. 6 B&W Photographs. 11 Tables.

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