The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen

The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen is a memoir about growing up in the South, football, and the deathof the patriarch from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). It tells the story of a life in football from a daughter’s perspective. It provides an intimate look at one family’s rise through the ranks of competitive football—from player to high school, then college coaching; followed by coaching in the WFL, CFL, and NFL, and ultimately to Super Bowl champions. It also chronicles the family’s struggle to deal with and understand the decline of the father who was at the center of thislifestyle from CTE.

The first 2/3rds of the book present the Leachman family’s rise through the ranks of football coaching: starting as a high school football coach in Savannah, Georgia, progressing to college coaching at a variety of schools in the South, and then heading north to coach for the defunct World Football League, the Canadian Football League, and ultimately the National Football League. Given, the time period, 1960-1990s, the book alsoaddresses the issue of racial relations in the South during the period of school integration. 

The last 1/3rd of the book chronicles the Leachman family’s struggle to deal with the growing incapacity of the patriarch, and to understand the causes of that decline. Lamar Leachman was ahead of the curve with respect to the onset of his disease. He began showing signs of degeneration in the early 1990s, long before the presence of any medical evidence, and a decade before the NFL would acknowledge the existence of CTE, and its link to football.

Told in a rich Southern voice, this is a story of one family’s love of a game and each other. It is a story of one man’s strength of character and the woman’s love that sustained him. It is a coming of age story of a strong-willed, independent young woman. It is a story that will make you laugh and make you cry.