Sportswriter White offers a deeply researched and detailed, respectful, and affectionate biography of Louisiana football coach Lewis “Louie” Cook Jr. and a portrait of his home ground. Except for six years at the University of Southern Louisiana (USL), Cook’s 45-plus-years' coaching career has been at Rayne, Crowley, and Notre Dame High Schools.… Cook clearly loves football and coaching. Some of White’s best passages are suspenseful accounts of key games for Cook and his players. But Cook considers football a means for preparing for the rest of life rather than an end in itself. He mentors his players and encourages them to excel academically. He told USL running back Kenny Lee, “If I just teach you about football, I’ve failed you. I’ve got to teach you about life and being a man.”

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Lewis Cook is a legend. Coaching for nearly five decades, it’s not just about the championships and wins but about impacting the lives of the young men and women he’s in contact with. His calm demeanor and strong desire for success has been a great model for those around him to follow. A lifetime committed to developing others is what legends are made of.

Brian Kelly, head football coach at Louisiana State University; former head coach at Notre Dame University (2010-2021), the winningest coach in the school's history

Winning in football is about executing the game plan better than your opponent. As the stories in this book attest, Coach Cook not only provides his players with game plans to win football games but also to win at life.

Jake Delhomme, all-time leading passer at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette; former NFL quarterback, leading the Carolina Panthers to their first Super Bowl

This book is a must read about a man who on and off the field is the epitome of what everyone in the coaching business should strive to be. I coached 16 years at the college level and 28 years in the NFL and if Louie Cook had chosen to be a college or pro head coach, he would’ve been one of the best. Coach Cook is very special.

David Culley, head coach of the Houston Texans (2021) and NFL assistant for the previous 27 years

In my 72-year career, I’ve known a lot of famous football coaches. Fans measure their achievements in games won and salaries earned. Victories make reputations. Salaries get you noticed. But what makes you a coach? More than most people will ever know, it’s teaching values as well as football?life skills after the scoreboard hits the final triple zeroes…understanding that for these kids, football will be over, but life is just beginning. I’d never heard of Lewis Cook before but now, thanks to Gaylon White’s book, I won’t forget him.

Jerry Izenberg, renowned sports journalist and author who began his career at the Newark, NJ, Star-Ledger in 1951

I’ve spent a lifetime covering great coaches. In his 50 years of coaching no one has accomplished as much as Louisiana high school legend Louie Cook on the football field, in the molding of young men and the bringing together of a community in the quest to attain life’s ultimate goal. Noted one longtime opposing coach: “Louie has a lot of Jesus in him?loving, forgiving, humility, compassion, gentleness, self-control, patience, obedience, honesty and prayerful.” I will add one other, humor. None of us can go back to high school but in reading Gaylon White’s masterful Coach of a Lifetime we can all take a knee after practice and be gifted the wise and inspirational words of Coach Louie Cook regarding faith, family, and football.

Kevin Kernan, sports journalist for 44 years, the last 23 with the New York Post