by David DeKunder, STAFF WRITER , San Antonio Express-News

Dave Campbell, founder and editor-in-chief of Texas Football , stopped by Cibolo June 18 for a rally and autograph session at the Steele gym. Campbell was in town to promote the Texas Football Kickoff Classic, which will be held Aug. 27-29 at the Alamodome.

The Steele Knights will be one of 10 teams participating in the Kickoff Classic when they take on the East Central Hornets at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 29. Each year, Campbell visits and tours the schools who participate in the Kickoff Classic, which started 10 years ago.

Throughout the 90-minute event, Campbell signed autographs of Texas Football , which came out with its 50th issue this month, for fans, players, parents, children, coaches and football officials who were working a 7-on-7 game at the high school campus.

People who got their copies of the magazine autographed by Campbell chatted and took pictures with the 84-year-old icon, who started Texas Football on the kitchen table of his Waco home in 1960.

Campbell relived putting out the first issue of the magazine, which was put together with the help of his wife Reba, and lost money during its first year.

"Since we were losing money all the time on the magazine, I don't know why she (Reba) told me why this has to stop," he said. "She was very patient and we persevered, and here we are 50 years later."

Texas Football has grown from 96 pages in 1960, which included coverage of high school football and college football in the old Southwest Conference, to nearly 370 pages today. The magazine has a staff of over 30 people and over 30 contributing writers.

"In 1960, we had four people do all the work and three people wrote the entire magazine," Campbell said. "I never worked so hard in my life."

Campbell was sports editor of the Waco Tribune-Herald when he started Texas Football . As sports editor of the paper, Campbell read the national publications that covered college football and was not impressed with the quality of coverage, especially when it came to Texas college football , including the hometown Baylor Bears.

"I would look at those magazines as soon as they came out ??? what they said about the teams in the Southwest Conference and get material for columns," Campbell said. "In 1959, a magazine that I happen to pick up, just did an atrocious job. It had lots of errors of facts and typographical errors, particularly on the Southwest Conference. So it occurred to me ??? because of the passion for football in Texas that if it a magazine that just concentrated on Texas - a regional magazine - that provided fresh, up-to-date qualitative writing on Southwest Conference and provided a preview of each high school in the state, such as magazine may have a chance to make it."

Through his several years of covering Texas high school football , Campbell said San Antonio has produced many outstanding football players over the past 50 years, including Jefferson High School's Tommy Nobis, who was an All-American linebacker for the University of Texas in the 1960s, and Judson High School running back Jerod Douglas, who helped lead the Rockets to two state titles.

Steele coach Mike Jinks, who was in the pages of Texas Football when he was a quarterback at Judson in the 1980s and later at Angelo State University , said he was finally glad to meet and talk to Campbell.

"It is humbling to meet him," Jinks said. "He is an icon; he has done so much for Texas high school football ."

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