Brett Lisher in leading a discussion Thursday evening on the spring Iola Reads selection, “Our Boys,” called the book an “astonishing story, one that you don’t have to be a sports fan to enjoy.” “It slowly builds into an intense story at the end,” Lisher said of the Smith Center football team’s 2008 season that ended as state champions a fifth consecutive year. The book is as much about the community and how parents and others rally around the team, and have for years, as the winning streak. “Coach (Roger) Barta builds character (in the players),” said Lisher, assistant baseball coach at ACCC, noting he could relate from his student-athlete days at Free State High in Lawrence, where his father is football coach. Barta sees his role “as more than a football coach,” he said. The personal qualities that lead to winning football games – dedication, strength of character and hard work – are ones “that make people successful in life,” observed Gail Dunbar, Iola Reads director. Iolan Don Kubler agreed. “The family aspect,” in community and among the players, “makes for a successful team,” he said. Which, Lisher added, is what Barta dwells on early in the 2008 season. Many players from the previous season, one of Smith Center’s best ever in a long line of successes, are gone and the coach has to build anew. PRIDE OOZES from the community and is a contagion that positively affects the team members, noted Ed Wilkerson, softball coach at ACCC. Lisher added: The team gives the community something to rally around. “It gives life in the face of a struggling economy,” he said. That’s not unusual for a small town in western Kansas, said Iolan Dixie Quincy, who grew up in one. “People rally around schools more in western Kansas,” she said. Author Joe Drape writes about the Smith Center stadium being packed for home games but deserted when fans follow the team to away games. “It’s their excitement,” Lisher observed, recalling that mothers of players met at the start of each season and planned meals for home and away games, all through the state championship date. Dunbar found a clubhouse where players gathered evenings and weekends an intriguing aside. “It’s a big deal in their lives” to be able to lounge together and grow closer as friends and teammates, she said. “I thought that was impressive.” So are post-game rituals, said Lisher. Parents and fans pour from the stadium after each game to form a circle on the field, with Coach Barta at its center talking to everyone, not just players. Fathers are welcome in the dressing room after games, as are mothers on senior night. The author Drape moved his family to Smith Center for the 2008 school year. His pre-school age son attended practices and was embraced by the community. “It is interesting how they (the Drapes) were accepted,” Lisher said. “All in the town wanted to help them” and showed Drape first-hand how the community worked together to help raise all Smith Center kids. LISHER ASKED whether the same atmosphere could develop in a larger town or in a metropolitan high school. His analysis was Barta would be successful no matter where he coached. But, said Dunbar, “he probably wouldn’t be as flamboyant as in Smith Center and probably wouldn’t have the community adulation he has there. “He’s not flashy,” she added. In Smith Center football is the only game in town, Lisher said. If Barta coached in the Kansas City area, even if he were as successful as he has been, his teams would be overshadowed by those with more widespread appeal, such as the Chiefs or Royals, he surmised. The anonymity of a city also would be a factor, said Leah Oswald, an Iola Reads member. She and her family moved here years ago from Topeka. Oswald recalled that city dwellers “don’t touch you like people do in as small town. You don’t know everyone in Topeka when you’re walking down a street like you do in Iola,” or Smith Center. Lisher said he also was impressed by Barta’s frequent admonition for his players “to have fun. That’s the way it should be in sports. If you’re not having fun you shouldn’t do it.” Barta’s soft-voiced demeanor, regardless of the situation, also was a point Lisher took from the book, as was how the Redmen players handled themselves in public, a result of Barta’s emphasis on community and character. “The story is about how a coach should be and how parents should raise their children,” Lisher said. “If you give kids love and expectations, that will lead to success,” Kubler said. “The whole (Smith Center) community feels that way and it rubs off on kids.” THE FINAL public Iola Reads event will be the evening of Feb. 7 when Drape and Barta will be at Creitz Recital Hall in the Bowlus Fine Arts Center. That afternoon they will be at Iola High School. Books are available through Iola Public Library and a dozen other places in the county. They are free for the taking, with the provision they be returned or passed on. Readers who would like to keep a copy are expected to make a donation to Iola Reads. This selection for the Iola Reads project received major funding from the Sleeper Trust, which permitted purchased of 550 copies. “Our Boys” is the 11th book in the project series of two a year and also is the statewide reading program selection this spring.
Lisher: ‘Our Boys’ more than sports tale
