Playing for Overtime

Discover how a hall-of-fame high school football coach made international news and became a local legend.

As a young man, David Lee Herbert had it all: loving marriage, four children he adored, and a new head football coaching job. On a November night in 1985, Coach Herbert was driving the team bus after a game and came upon the scene of a horrific accident that involved his family. His response left an indelible mark on an entire community.

Two years later, Coach Herbert began to show signs of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), setting the stage for one last season coaching the Tishomingo  Bulldogs and his son, the senior quarterback. Needing to win by at least four points to secure a spot in the playoffs, his team led by two with seven seconds left. He sent in a play that his team had never run in a game, never practiced, never drawn on a chalkboard. By the end of the weekend, in an age before the Internet, the play went viral.

Playing for Overtime is an inspirational story of a Mississippi football coach whose perseverance and faith when life—even God—seemed to be piling on, continues to set a standard for responding to life’s most difficult circumstances.