Career-spanning collection brings Huntsville sports editor John Pruett’s columns back
HUNTSVILLE – Huntsville Independent Press will publish The John Pruett Collection: A Final Offering, Humbly Served on September 16. The book gathers more than four decades of writing by the longtime sports editor of The Huntsville Times. Pruett, who died June 25, 2025, at 83, was named Alabama’s Sportswriter of the Year 17 times.
His son Tom Pruett and fellow sportswriter Mark McCarter compiled the collection, and the columns return to print with permission from AL.com.
Pruett joined The Huntsville Times in 1966 and served as its sports editor from 1974 until his retirement in 2008. He covered the Olympics, the Final Four, the Masters, the Kentucky Derby and dozens of bowl games, and he often said his greatest joy came from covering local high school sports.
Newspaper colleagues saluted him as “The General.” He was inducted into the Alabama Sports Writers Hall of Fame in 2003 and was the first writer in the association’s history to complete its grand slam: the Hall of Fame, the Herby Kirby Award for story of the year, the Bill Shelton Award for community service and a term as president. Two writers have matched the feat since; McCarter is one of them.
The book runs nearly 500 pages and includes tributes from Pruett’s colleagues, a gallery of 25 photographs and a foreword by former Auburn basketball coach Sonny Smith and former Alabama coach Wimp Sanderson. “He’s one of the best writers that ever covered me while I was coaching. He was honest,” Smith writes in the foreword.
Preorders are open now at huntsvilleindependent. com. A launch celebration, sponsored by the Huntsville-Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame, will be held the evening of September 16 at Joe Davis Stadium, where Pruett covered the Huntsville Stars. The public is invited.
John Kenneth Pruett was born August 9, 1941, in Cullman. He graduated from Auburn University in 1963 and earned a master’s degree from the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism in 1964. He spent 42 years at The Huntsville Times and was inducted into the inaugural class of the Huntsville-Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame in 1989. In 2014, he and George Smith were the first recipients of the Mel Allen Media Award from the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, and in 2015 he was honored as one of 50 Legends of Alabama sports writing. He and his wife of 57 years, Bobbi, raised three children in Huntsville.
About the Editors:
Tom Pruett is John Pruett’s son and lives in Huntsville. Mark McCarter covered sports in Huntsville for decades and is one of the two writers who followed Pruett in completing the Alabama Sports Writers Association grand slam.
The John Pruett Collection: A Final Offering, Humbly Served Publisher: Huntsville Independent Press Release Date: September 16, 2026 ISBN-13: 979-8-951358 11-0 (paperback); 979-8 951358-12-7 (hardcover) Available from Huntsville Independent Press (huntsvilleindependent. com)
