Anthology collects decades of John Pruett's sports writing
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Image: Courtesy Huntsville Independent Press
A curated compilation of John Pruett's sports writing hit shelves Wednesday.
Why it matters: The longtime Huntsville sports writer, who died last year, chronicled more than 40 years of sports history, from local and college football to the Olympics.
Catch up quick: The nearly 500-page book was released by Huntsville Independent Press Sept. 16, edited by Pruett's son Tom Pruett and his fellow local sports writer Mark McCarter.
- "It really was something that the family wanted to happen," McCarter told Axios, explaining that Tom Pruett reached out to him about organizing a collection of columns John Pruett had left behind.
- John Pruett was named Alabama's Sportswriter of the Year 17 times and inducted into the Alabama Sports Writers Hall of Fame in 2003.
How it works: Many of Pruett's former colleagues provided introductions and tributes for each of the chapters, which are broken down by individual sports, McCarter said.
- That includes former Auburn basketball coach Sonny Smith and former Alabama basketball coach Wimp Sanderson.
- One word that kept coming from Smith and Sanderson was trust, including the trust they had in Pruett as a writer and the trust he had in them as coaches, something McCarter feels is missing in today's media landscape.
What they're saying: "Beyond that, I think John was trusted by the readers," he said. "(Readers) trusted that he was going to be honest with them, that he was not choosing sides, that he wasn't just writing to stir something up … just to sell papers."
- Looking at everything, they spent a couple of weeks "sorting through and trying to keep it from becoming a terribly thick book," McCarter said.
Zoom in: "Every time I've dived into it … I go, 'Wow, I forgot how good that one was,'" McCarter said, mentioning personal writing Pruett published about his family including one "guilty father letter" Pruett wrote from Hawaii while covering a bowl game during the holidays.
- Expect to read "a beautiful column on Bear Bryant's funeral" and work on other major sports figures, McCarter said, but also a "high school stud from here he caught up with 20 years later and wrote about."
- He noted additions like Pruett's writing on Don Mincher, pro baseball player and part owner of the Huntsville Stars, and John Stallworth, pro football Hall of Famer.
The bottom line: "I think it's a great history book for local sports and for Alabama," McCarter told Axios. "John was such an elegant and timeless writer."