As the UIL Texas high school football postseason ramps up for semifinal action, the state and sport lost one of its pioneers as sports journalist Dave Campbell died Friday, multiple media outlets reported. He was 96.
The former sports editor at the Waco Tribune-Herald, Campbell founded Dave Campbell's Texas Football — known as "the bible of Texas football — in 1960 and though the publication was sold in 1985 his name remained on one of the most influential works. He worked at the Tribune-Herald from 1953-1993 and also was the editor of the Baylor Bear Foundation's Insider until 2008.
A Baylor alumnus, Campbell is in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and served as president of the Football Writers Association of America and was the Southwest Heisman Trophy voting committee representative.
"Texas lost an all-time legend today with the news of Dave Campbell's passing," Adam Hochfelder, president of the magazine said
on the publication's website. "Legends do great things that make those around them better people and enrich the lives of those they do not even know. Dave Campbell was a Texas legend."
Campbell was born in 1925 in Waco, Texas, and worked at the Tribune-Herald before enrolling at Baylor University before being drafted in 1943 to fight in World War II. He fought in France and Germany, earning a Bronze Star.
He returned to Waco and the idea for the magazine was formed in 1959, intended to make up for what Campbell perceived to be a shortage of coverage of the Southwest Conference, according to the publication's obituary. In 1960, the initial publication lost money, but football crazed Texas eventually turned the magazine into a must-read that morphed into other publications, including Arkansas Football magazine and ones devoted to the Dallas Cowboys, Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints.
"It's the law when it comes to Texas High School Football," Austin Westlake coach Todd Dodge told the Texas Football website. "I was in the magazine in the summer of 1980, and we couldn't wait to get that magazine and even today it's still a big deal for the kids now."
