The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen tells the story of a football life from a daughter's perspective. It provides a look under the hood, so to speak, of one family's rise through the ranks of competitive football-from player, to coach, to Super Bowl champions. It also chronicles their struggle to deal with the decline and death of the patriarch from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as a result of that life. It is a story of one family's love of a game and each other, and one man's strength of character and one woman's love that sustained him.
The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen is available in e-form at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Morgan-James-Publishing.com on January 30, 2018. The print version of the book is available May 22, 2018 and can also be found at Books-A-Million, Chapters, and Powell's.
Pre-orders available on Amazon.com, Chapters.indigo.ca, and Barnesandnoble.com.
- Listen to an radio interview with Ms. Leachman on the Long Version, iRadioFreedom;
“From 1979 to 1993, I quarterbacked the New York Giants. During my tenure with the Giants we won two Super Bowls based on the strength of both our offense and defense, and the quality of our coaching staff.
During the majority of my time playing for the Giants, Lamar Leachman coached the defensive line. We had a very good relationship. We were always talking football and our families. There is no doubt we had a lot in common. I grew up in Kentucky. He grew up in Georgia. We both had similar upbringings, and a tremendous love of football and the NFL.
Lamar was a big personality. He walked around with a lot of swagger. You always knew when he walked into a room because he was loud; talking and laughing, in a way that always created energy for the team. He had good relationships with everybody. Even though he was a coach and ranked above the players, he could talk their language, laugh with them, and still coach his guys very hard.
“The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen” is a tribute to Lamar’s spirit as well as a tribute to the football life. It tells the story of one family’s rise through the ranks of competitive football, from the unique perspective of a daughter. It also chronicles the Leachman family’s struggle to understand and cope with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a tragic consequence of living such a life.
Reading this book will make you laugh and make you cry. It will make you wish you had grown up in such a family, and make you think twice about a life in football.”
“With humor and grace Leachman has woven a tale about a smart, headstrong southern girl coming of age in a male-centric world. Full of tragedies and triumphs, it is a powerful love story of one family’s devotion to a game and each other.”
“A daughter’s heartwarming account of growing up in a football family. A family’s heartbreaking account of dealing with neurodegenerative disease.”
“With an abundance of wit and memorable detail, Lori Leachman’s memoir explores growing up in a household ruled by football, the pros and cons of the sport as controversial on the domestic front as on the field: ultimately, it is a story of her parents’ marriage, growing up in the South and then losing the father who stood at the center of it all.”