Phil Robertson, 1946 to 2025

Before the beard and the television show, Phil Robertson was a Louisiana Tech quarterback who turned down a shot at the pros because it would have cut into duck season. He married Kay young, ran a bar, drank hard, and by his late twenties had driven his own family out of the house.

Then a preacher walked into that bar. Phil listened, argued, and eventually knelt. He was baptized, went home, and asked his wife and sons to take him back. They did. He spent the next fifty years telling anyone who would stand still about the man who changed his mind: hunters, neighbors, television crews, and, eventually, millions of readers.

In 1972 he carved a better duck call than anything on the market, and in 1973 he founded Duck Commander out of the family home in West Monroe. In 2012 the family's company became the subject of Duck Dynasty, one of the most-watched cable series in American history. His memoir, Happy, Happy, Happy, reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list. With his sons Jase and Al he hosted the Unashamed podcast, where he said the same things he had been saying since 1975, only louder.

He died at home in Louisiana on May 25, 2025, at 79, surrounded by his family.

 

About this book

I Could Be Wrong, But I Doubt It was published by Thomas Nelson in March 2024. Written with his brother-in-law Gordon Dasher, it is the last full-length book Phil completed, and it is the one that says most directly what he believed and why.

It is not a memoir. It is an argument, made the way Phil made arguments, with a story from the river, a verse from the Book, and a plain conclusion. Politics will not save you. Science cannot sidestep death. Self-help runs out. Jesus, he says, is the only one who ever made good on the promise of lasting peace, real freedom, and life that does not end.

Each chapter takes one thing Phil was sure about: Jesus as Creator, as King, as Teacher, as the one who satisfies, as the one who stands up for you, and as the King who washed feet. He writes to the believer who wants to hear it said plainly, and to the doubter, because he remembers exactly what it was like to be one.