“The story of Harry Mehre is quite remarkable,” Maxwell penned in chapter one. “He played football at Notre Dame under the legendary Coach Knute Rockne. He held the position of head coach at the University of Georgia and at Ole Miss. Later, Harry enjoyed a second career as a highly-respected sports writer and football analyst.”
Maxwell’s 240-page book chronicles Mehre’s life and career through the use of photos, interviews, news clippings, as well as audio and video.
“The most important thing to understand about Harry Mehre is there’s never been one like him, and there never will be,” Maxwell told the Athens Banner-Herald. “This book is my attempt to capture the complexity and diversity that made Harry Mehre great.”
Covering Coach Mehre’s life chronologically, the book begins with his career as a Notre Dame football player in the early 1920s.
Maxwell then dives into Athens, where Mehre started his career as a University of Georgia assistant football coach in 1924 and head football coach four years later.
Maxwell tells this part of Mehre’s story using personal letters between the legendary coach and his mentor, Notre Dame Coach Knute Rockne.
“One of the really cool chapters in the book are the Knute Rockne letters, letters between Rockne and Mehre talking about their common enemy — Georgia Tech,” Maxwell said.
The author said that the book is just as much about Notre Dame as it is about UGA.
“People forget that Mehre was a ‘Damer.’ That’s where he learned it all,” he said.
Also in the book is life after retirement, his 25-year career as a sports writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the end of his life that includes obituaries written by notable people such as Lewis Grizzard and Furman Bisher.
Maxwell also included more than 60 scannable QR codes, which give the reader access to over four hours of audio and video footage with game film; interviews with Vince Dooley and Charlie Trippi as well as the last known audio of Mehre.
“It’s cool to tell these stories,” Maxwell said. “But how much cooler is it to hear the person who lived it tell it?”
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