Peek'Size Football Guide

America's Longest Running Football Guide! Ernest W. Peek's little books are best-sellers and have been for 70+ years. Mr. Peek published the first guide in 1939. Son Leslie Peek continues the tradition for fans and collectors.

The History of the Peek'Size Guide:
His little books are best-sellers and have been for 70+ years but Mr. Ernie Peek didn't have the soul of an author. He had the heart of a salesman.

In 1928, when Earnest Wilburn Peek began publishing the football guides of Franklin, Tennessee High School and Battle Ground Academy, he never dreamed that he was embarking on a life-long vocation. Nor did he anticipate in 1939 that his early printing efforts would evolve into the now famous PEEK'SIZE FOOTBALL GUIDE, that has been published in 28 states, (including Hawaii) with circulation numbers that swelled to more than 600,000 annually.

Mr. Peek started out selling ads on two-sided single page schedule cards for local area high schools in East Tennessee. That original idea has grown into the current 52 page version of the PEEK'SIZE FOOTBALL GUIDE. Mr. Peek attributed the success of the guide to its size – 2.5" x 4.5" and used to say "Peek Size is Keep Size". "People can put it in their shirt pocket, they don't know it's there… but yet they do."

How many sports publications do you know of that have survived for 70+ years?

The PEEK'SIZE FOOTBALL GUIDE features a major university conference but, it was the first guide to also include pro, local small college, high school and prep schedules. It even includes a section on the referees signals for all the "rules junkies." It is a statisticians dream for serious football fans. The content inside is updated yearly, but the cover remains basically unchanged with the exception of a few special anniversary issues over the years. Mr. Peek was proud of the sameness – he found a winning formula and stuck with it – the same formula he started with way back in 1939.

Year after year, the PEEK'SIZE FOOTBALL GUIDE has proven itself to be a valuable advertising tool. During its 70+ years of existence, copies of PEEK'SIZE have been requested from practically every state in the U.S. and also from several foreign countries. The PEEK'SIZE FOOTBALL GUIDE is still one of the most popular guides printed today and has kept its popularity through our thousands of fans who collect and keep editions each year. This enhances the value of PEEK'SIZE by keeping our advertisers names before thousands of potential customers for years at a time.

Mr. Peek may no longer be with us, (he passed away in November of 1999) but the vision of his PEEK'SIZE FOOTBALL GUIDE can still be seen today through the leadership of his son and publisher, Leslie Peek.

– History compiled from Peek family archived news articles