By Lee Hurley
Keith Dunnavant has spent a career moving across media without ever really leaving the same mission: telling interesting stories about interesting people and events. He started young, working in north Alabama journalism as a teenager, then built a reputation as a sportswriter, magazine entrepreneur, author and, eventually, documentary filmmaker. Along the way he wrote definitive football books, covered major programs and national sports trends, launched his own magazines and broadened his reach into film. But in his latest project, Dunnavant has turned his attention to something smaller in scale but not in significance: the story of Mountain Brook High School’s 1975 state football championship team.
The film—Every Hill Is a Step—is the focus of his work now and part of a larger effort began about three years ago with Prep Legends Media, a company devoted to documentary films about the history of championship high school sports teams. For Dunnavant, the attraction is not just football itself, but what football reveals about a town, a school and a shared identity.
Dunnavant understands that world well. He grew up in Athens, Alabama, in a family steeped in media. His father and grandfather were in radio, and he was doing professional work by age 14. He later attended the University of Alabama on what he described as an athletic department writing and media scholarship made possible by an interview with Paul “Bear” Bryant.
As an author, Dunnavant became known for books on Coach Bryant, Joe Montana and Bart Starr, then widened his scope with works such as Spy Pilot and Speed, showing an ability to move beyond sports into national history, espionage and aviation. In film, too, he has worked on larger productions, including ESPN documentaries on Starr and other subjects.
Yet Dunnavant speaks about the Prep Legends films with a particular kind of passion. The budgets are smaller and the settings more local, but that seems to be part of the appeal. He is deeply interested in the “connective tissue” between a small community and its football team, especially when that bond culminates in a championship. Those stories, he believes, carry built-in emotional stakes, narrative tension and, at the end, a shared sense of pride.
That framework made the 1975 Mountain Brook team an ideal subject. Dunnavant had been aware of that team for years, having grown up in Alabama during that era. Mountain Brook was then still a relatively young football program, and under head coach Robert Higginbotham it rose quickly from struggle to dominance. The 1975 Spartans finished 13-0 and won the school’s first state football championship, a breakthrough achievement that still carries meaning nearly five decades later. The school repeated this feat in 1976.
In Dunnavant’s telling, Every Hill Is a Step is not simply a victory lap. It is a character-driven story about a demanding coach, a group of players pushed beyond what they thought were their limits, and a community transformed by the result. It explores the arrival of star running back Major Ogilvie in the summer of 1975, along with the rapid building of a contender under Higginbotham and the symbolic importance of Mountain Brook’s rivalry with Berry High School whom they had never beaten.
Interviewees in the film include players Ogilvie, quarterback Richard Burg, Matt Whatley, Dan Tourtellotte, Scott Cardwell, Robbie Thomas, Charlie Speake and Higginbotham himself. Dunnavant says Ogilvie was especially important to the film, both because of his talent and because his arrival helped elevate an already strong team. But just as important, he adds, was the bond formed among players who endured Higginbotham’s demanding standards together— a bond that has lasted half a century.
Dunnavant’s four-person documentary team includes director of photography Jonathan W. Hickman, editor Maggie Hickman and digital media coordinator Joe Beamon. According to Dunnavant each film begins as a blank canvas and requires both reporting and invention. He and his collaborators dig through newspaper archives, conduct extensive interviews and shape the material with the goal of not just preserving history, but creating an emotional experience.
The film itself runs approximately 30 to 45 minutes and will premiere in a single showing at 7 p.m. on September 17 at Mountain Brook High School. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the Mountain Brook Quarterback Club’s charity.
Tickets are available for $20 at zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/mb-spartans-1975-state-champions-premier.
