“No one was denying that the Redmen played pretty good football out here on the plains. The current senior class had won 51 in a row, three straight championships, and had outscored its opponents 704-0. These seniors had never lost a game in high school, had not let a team score on them all year, and were just three games away from capturing their fourth consecutive championship.”
That passage alone, from the spring Iola Reads selection, “Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen,” is tantalizing enough to prompt even a casual sports fan to pick up a copy.
The books will be distributed free of charge, starting Jan. 12 through the Iola Public Library, Iola Pharmacy and a dozen other places in town.
Iola Reads, in its sixth year, is a project that means to encourage people to read and pique their interest in examining the book through public programs.
Accompanying events are:
— Jan. 12, launch of the spring project with Football 101 in the Iola Public Library meeting room at 7 p.m., featuring Jeff Kluever, Allen County Historical Society executive director.
— Jan. 26, a book discussion at the Flewharty-Powell Annex of Iola Public Library at 7 p.m. with Allen County Community College assistant baseball coach Brett Lisher.
— Feb. 7, a program at the Creitz Recital Hall in the Bowlus Fine Arts Center featuring Joe Drape, an award-winning New York Times sportswriter and the book’s author, and Roger Barta, the legendary coach of Smith Center. Drape and Barta will give a presentation at Iola High School in the afternoon.
THE SPRING selection for the Iola Reads project received major funding from the Sleeper Trust. Fall programs are underwritten by the Whitehead Trust.
Gail Dunbar, district curriculum director who oversees the Iola Reads program, said 550 copies of “Our Boys” were purchased. The idea of the program is that once the book is read, it is returned or handed off to another reader. People who wish to keep a book are expected to make a donation to the project.
“This will be the 11th book in the project series and also was this year’s selection for a statewide reading project,” Dunbar said.
Sponsoring partners for Iola Reads, a One Book, One Community project, are Iola Public Library, USD 257, ACCC’s library and the Bowlus Fine Arts Center.
“OUR BOYS” chronicles the amazing success of the Smith Center High football team and townspeople who immerse themselves in support of the team.
Drape moved his family from New York City to Smith Center “to discover what makes Smith Center and ‘our boys’ such an inspiration. What he found,” commentary on the book’s back cover says, “goes to the core of what America’s heartland is today.”
Smith Center is in north central Kansas near the Kansas-Nebraska line, about 50 miles northwest of Concordia. The town has a population of slightly more than 1,900, about the same as Humboldt.
Two Smith Center players, Mark Simoneau and Steve Tasker, played in the National Football League.
