FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Gary Lloyd
CLAY – Gary Lloyd’s new book, All Blue: A Season of Leadership, Legacy, and Lessons Learned, is set to release on Wednesday, April 1, 2026.
In the fall of 2025, Clay-Chalkville High School in Alabama chased a championship in the space between memory and change.
Friday nights arrived with familiar rituals and quiet pressure. Helmets were buckled. Lights came on. A stadium that held decades of voices stood on borrowed time, even as a new season demanded full attention. Wins accumulated, but so did moments that never appeared on a scoreboard – conversations in parking lots, superstitions repeated without explanation, lessons passed down rather than announced.
All Blue is the story of that season, not just the games that filled the scoreboard, but the people who filled the space around it. The routines, the pressure, the faith, the humor, and the relationships that shaped a team and reflected the place it came from.
Set against a changing campus and a city growing alongside its school, this book captures a year when Clay-Chalkville football became a mirror for continuity, community, and what it means to earn something together.
Lloyd, an author from Trussville, Alabama, began working on the book in the spring of 2025 and followed the Clay-Chalkville football program throughout the spring, summer, and fall. He also found and wrote about thematic through-lines in the city of Clay throughout the year.
“At its core, the book follows a Clay-Chalkville football season, but the games are really just the structure,” Lloyd said. “What I was interested in was everything happening around them — the city, the people, the changes you can feel but don’t always talk about. As the season unfolds, you start to see how football sits at the center of Clay’s identity, how it reflects pride and tradition, but also how it intersects with growth, money, leadership, and community expectations. I’m not trying to make a grand statement or turn it into something it’s not. I was paying attention. And what I saw was a season that ended in a championship, but also revealed a city in the middle of figuring out who it is and who it wants to be. The football gives it momentum, but the city gives it meaning.”
All Blue will be available for $15 in paperback and $20 in hardcover on Amazon.com on April 1. It is also available on Kindle for $7.99. Copies are also available from Lloyd by emailing Gary.Lloyd87@gmail.com.
For more information, visit www.garylloydbooks.com or follow Gary Lloyd – Author on Facebook.
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Gary Lloyd Books 