Delvan Irwin did not intend to become one of the leading historians on Mississippi high school football. Ten years and 14 books later, it just sort of happened.

Irwin, a Vicksburg native and St. Aloysius graduate, has spent the past decade chronicling the history of more than a dozen of Mississippi’s high school teams. His latest, “Eleven Brothers,” covers Warren Central from 1965 through 2009 and will be released Nov. 29.

Irwin’s other books include histories of St. Aloysius, Cathedral, Pearl, Brandon, Magee, Louisville and Mississippi College. Two others on Jackson Prep and Hattiesburg will follow the one on Warren Central later this year.

“It’s a hobby is what it is. People like to hunt and fish, some people play golf every day. I love this,” said Irwin, who works in the banking industry and lives in Clinton. “I did St. Al. Then I wanted to do Natchez Cathedral because that was our big rival. Then my son was playing at Clinton, so I did Clinton. The next thing you know, it’s taking off.”

“Eleven Brothers” follows the template Irwin laid down with his first book “The Brothers’ Boys” which details the history of his alma mater St. Aloysius. It is a 280-page encyclopedia of Warren Central football that includes a game-by-game recap for each of the program’s first 45 seasons; a historical roster of more than 1,400 players, head coaches, assistant coaches and cheerleaders; all-county and all-district players and championships; and even a list of homecoming queens.

Irwin assembled the information through painstaking research that pored over newspaper accounts from around the state, school yearbooks and other sources. He credited longtime Warren Central coach Curtis Brewer and Stacey Willoughby with providing some of the materials.

“It’s kind of like a puzzle. You’ll build it. And then if you know you’re missing something you go to the yearbooks and see if there’s a name mentioned,” Irwin said. “A lot of those yearbooks will just show the team picture or the assistant coaches and that’s it. How do you know who they are? You have to do as much diving as you can. You can see a picture that says last year’s homecoming queen Lisa Jones crowns this year’s homecoming queen Marisa Jones, or whatever. Now you have two names.”