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An inspiring portrait of the extraordinary high-school football team whose quest for perfection sustains its hometown in the heartlandThe football team in Smith Center, Kansas, has won sixty-seven games in a row, the nation’s longest high-school winning streak. They have done so by embracing a philosophy of life taught by their legendary coach, Roger Barta: “Respect each other, then learn to love each other and together we are champions.”But as they emb… More >>
Go & get it here - i can recommend it:
Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen
The book is very written, not just about foolball but about young men and their coaches. How they become complete men for they life that is ahead of them. The book takes you though a season on the field and off the field. It’s not aboutbwinning but getting better each week. Joe Drape is a very good writer, and gives you a very good picture of a group of young men working their way to a perfect season..
1st I have to say I am big football fan, and I enjoy watching NFL and college football games on Sundays and Saturdays. This books itself is well-written and a story well told. But the idea of becoming a good grown man by playing football is very narrow-minded, this country has way too many boys playing football and other sports, there’s even a word for them, jocks! What do they become after they grow up? Car salesmen, insurance brokers? That’s one of the main reasons that this country is going downhill rapidly.
The level of suspense in OUR BOYS isn’t what it could have been. Author Joe Drape tells us early on that the 2008 Smith Center, Kansas, football team won its fifth state championship in a row and set a Kansas record for most consecutive victories with 67. In case we missed it, he provides pictures of the team accepting the trophy.
The 2008 team was not supposed to be good enough to keep the string alive. They were mostly back-ups from one of the best teams that Coach Roger Barta had ever coached. They had some close games early on, if you stretch your definition of close games. When the Northwestern Wildcats beat the Minnesota Gophers in double overtime after the Gopher coach went for a two point conversion and failed, that was a close game. We’re talking a couple of touchdowns difference here. The Redmen were used to beating their opponents 60-0
Coach Barta has a system in place. At times these boys sound like the BAND OF BROTHERS. There’s a quote from Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder on the back cover that pretty much sums things up: “A great read for all, but even more so for big-city readers. It is not so much a story about football but about the true meaning of Midwestern values, family life, and the spirit of small-town Kansas and its special people.”
This book is a hagiography for the most part. To his credit, Drape looks for some warts. He finds some methamphetamine abuse but quickly drops it. In another instance he catches Coach Barta griping about his entire backfield missing practice the day before the most important game of the year to attend a choir competition. Barta later says he was only psyching the reserves, but I doubt it. Then there’s the game where Barta’s team ran up 72 points in the first quarter against his alma mater. It was a play-off game, so they couldn’t let the clock run. Barta says he didn’t know what to do. Barta also has nine, count `em nine, assistant coaches, one of whom coaches junior varsity. These are paid assistants.
Author Joe Drape lived in Smith Center during the record-setting year. He brought his young son Jack along, who quickly became a water boy for the team and began saying he wanted to grow up to be a football player and a farmer, so you can’t blame Drape for becoming seduced. But this book is no FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. That book showed the ugly underbelly of high school sports as well as its good side.
It seems lately there is a rash of books/movies about high school and college football teams who overcome obstacles to make good. The compelling part of these stories is twofold:
1. We are inspired by individuals/teams overcoming impossible odds.
2. Americans love an underdog.
Unfortunately, “Our Boys” really had neither, and the entire story is told in the sub-title. The thing is, I kept thinking there was a story here somewhere…I’m just not sure where.
Smith Center, Kansas, is a tiny, rural farm town in north central Kansas. Nothing really unique about the place, except for the fact that it’s high school has been undefeated for 4 years, and has won 4 state championships. It has been under the leadership of Coach Roger Barta, a man who puts more emphasis on respecting each other and making a better team than he does on winning or losing. The problem is, the previous class of seniors have left, and the belief is the next class coming up cannot match their skill and keep the record alive.
Writer Joe Drape decides to move from his home in New York to Smith Center to get to know this coach and his team, and to discover if this team can keep the dream alive. I found this intriguing - that a man would move his wife and 3 year old child from a big city to a small rural town to truly involve himself in every aspect of the story he was writing. Although Joe Drape did include insights about Smith Center, I wish he had shared more. His point is that the town helped to shape these young men (which I believe it had to), but I didn’t get a feel for how that was so.
Instead, there is much more emphasis placed on the actual plays of the games Smith Center played. Now, I suppose if one were really, really into football, this would be a good thing. And while I like a good football game, I don’t live for the sport. I found the almost play by play action tedious and dull.
For me, there didn’t seem to be impossible odds to surmount, so there wasn’t a whole of suspence or tension in the book. I didn’t really find myself cheering for the Smith Center Redmen, but I didn’t find myself booing them, either. The author tells the reader there are issues to be dealt with, but I didn’t feel involved.
What I did really come away with from this book was the philosophies of Coach Barta. The idea that one should not be concerned about winning or losing, but about making oneself better each day, is something every one can benefit from. The reader can see how Coach Barta, and his associate coaches, really care about the boys on the team and want them to succeed in all they do. The fairness and evenhandness the coaches use with the boys - that’s the part of the book that really caught me up.
I belive if one is a devoted fan of high school football, they will get a lot of this book. If they are like me…watches an occasional NFL game and the Superbowl…perhaps not so much.