It’s on page 136 of a 58-year-old edition of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, with the menacing Aggies offensive lineman Mo Moorman scowling at the camera on the cover. There, in all its majesty, is the preview of the 1967 Gatesville Hornets.

Tackle Stanley Kopec (a towering 6-1 and 200 pounds) and tailback Bobby Cole are the headliners — Cole even has his headshot featured in the page opposite. Gatesville’s picked third in District 13-3A, and it turns out it was a pretty good prediction: the Hornets went 5-5. Good going, Dave.

But it’s the “other good defensive hands” we’ll focus on here, including Randy Vroman, Ronnie Moore, Doyce Wright, Jim Ferguson and a youngster named Mark Reeve.

“My high school coaches, and my junior high coaches, they’re the ones that had the most impact on me,” Reeve said from his home in Mountain Home, just outside Kerrville. “And when you grow up in a small town, you do everything together. Just being around all the other kids that I grew up with, that’s what I remember most.”

Reeve would have to wait until 1991 to appear in Texas Football again, this time as the head coach at Victoria — he actually coached the Stingarees to a 10-2 record in 1990, but his hiring was so late that it didn’t make press time. It was the start of a remarkable 18-year high school coaching career, including launching the Plano West program and seven years at Cuero — Reeve holds a 183-37 career record in the high school ranks.

But while his first title in Texas high school football might’ve been “good defensive hand,” he relishes his new title even more: Papa.

“They’re so much better players than I was,” Reeve said of his grandsons — El Campo tight end Colt Reeve and Corpus Christi Calallen safety Ryder Reeve. “Everything now is more technical; they’re better trained.

“I just kind of marvel at how much better coached they are.”

That’s a sly bit of praise, considering both Colt and Ryder are coached by Mark’s sons — Colt by his father Travis Reeve at El Campo, and Ryder by his father Charlie Reeve at Calallen.

“They’re both a lot better coaches than I was,” Mark Reeve said. “They’ve done a lot better job. Sometimes they don’t want to hear it, so I try to keep my mouth shut, but I’ve been real proud of both of them.”

Three years after Reeve appeared in Texas Football, Ronnie Spinks turned up in the 1970 edition, listed as a 6-2 and 220-pound defensive lineman for the Carrollton R.L. Turner Lions. But after years of being the one cheered — including a stint at Navarro College — he’s quite used to being the one cheering now.

First, it was his sons Ron and Adam, who played for Denton and Denton Liberty Christian, respectively, in the 1990s.

“Watching my boys play, and both of them were outstanding athletes, it was just a lot of fun,” Ronnie said. “But the main thing is they’ve turned out to be such Christian good people that anybody would be proud of.”

But this Friday, you can find Ronnie at Neal Wilson Athletic Stadium in Flower Mound, watching his grandson Noah play quarterback for the Jaguars.

Every grandfather brags on their grandkids, but Ronnie admits he’s got it easier than most.

“I think of Noah, he’s kind of a prodigy at throwing the football — just like the kid that plays the piano,” Ronnie said. “It’s just something special.”

Legacy takes other forms, too.

Larry Uland understands the power of legacy. A four-time state champion head coach at Greenville Christian, with stops at Duncanville, Cedar Hill and Dallas Jefferson, the 88-year-old lives on his family’s 60-acre plot just north of Farmersville alongside four generations of Ulands, all the way down to great-grandbabies.

The land is a bond; so is Texas high school football. Larry watched his son AJ serve as offensive coordinator at Duncanville and Bonham before retiring; now, he’s watching his grandson Josh coordinate the defense at McKinney.

On that 60 acres, football talk runs through the generations.

“Josh is going to be a super coach,” Larry said. “He’s a super young man, he has a fine new son, and he’s doing well there at McKinney. I hope to be able to get over there and see some of his work this season.”

Mickey Finley’s football career began in Andrews, where he’s featured as a standout halfback for the Mustangs in the 1969 Texas Football. Turns out, it was the start of a 34-year coaching journey stretching from Klondike to Victoria — and his sons caught the bug, too.

Joe Jon Finley was a blue-chip tight end at Arlington before a strong career at Oklahoma and a swim through the NFL; he’s back at his alma mater, serving as the Sooners’ tight ends coach. Clint Finley was a star at Cuero and Nebraska before his own brief NFL career; he's in his third season as head coach at Sealy — his dad’s an unofficial advisor to the program, lending his three-decades of expertise where he can.

“Our job is to build good young men,” Mickey said. “The winning will come with that. Football’s one of the best subjects in school right now — it teaches them to be good young men, good family men.”

The same can be said for the next generation of Finleys — Mickey will get to watch his grandson Beau suit up for the Tigers on Friday night when they visit Navasota in the season opener.

“I think your expectations are a little bit higher,” Mickey said of watching his grandson. “You want them to be a lot better than you were. I just want Beau to keep striving to get better every day.”

For generations, Texas high school football has served as a connective tissue, binding families and communities and a state under a single banner. A touchstone in countless lives across the Lone Star State. A family heirloom.

A new season is dawning, and with it, a thousand new chapters are written in a thousand family stories, in ways big and small. New entries in the Spinks family legacy, and the Ulands, and the Finleys, and the Reeves.

And while the game has changed, for grandfathers like Mark Reeve, what it means is the same.

“I hope they learn to be good people, have great character, be humble, and understand they’re part of a team,” Mark Reeve said. “And in the classroom and community, you’ve got to be that guy who does it right.”