Joe Drape told about 100 responsive folks Tuesday evening how his book about Smith Center’s football team came about.
The talk was the finale in the Iola Reads programming about “Our Boys.” Drape spoke at the Creitz Recital Hall of the Bowlus Fine Arts Center.
Drape recalled he was returning from an assignment — he’s a New York Times reporter — when he noticed an article about Smith Center scoring 72 points in the first quarter of a game.
“I called the school and asked to talk to Coach (Roger) Barta,” Drape said. “‘He’s in bed, call back in a couple of hours,’ I was told,” that the coach, no longer a teacher, didn’t come to school early in the day.
Later he made contact and found Barta unassuming, and embarrassed about having scored so many points against Plainview.
“We scored at the start on a long run and then things got out of hand,” Barta told his Iola audience. “We put in the junior varsity, then the freshman, and they kept scoring. When I looked up and the clock finally was at zero, I thought it was half-time.”
The 72 points set a national record for single-quarter scoring.
Drape arranged a visit to Smith Center, five hours by car west of his boyhood home in Kansas City. Once there he walked into the Second Cup Cafe and announced he wanted to write a story about Smith Center football. Chairs slid back and their occupants, the daily coffee crowd, started talking.
Drape said he quickly realized Smith Center football truly was a community event. Before he left the cafe he had the title for his book.
“They kept referring to the football team as ‘our boys,’” he said.
DRAPE AND BARTA captivated an audience of Iola High students earlier in the day just as they did those who attended the Bowlus event.
Drape said the initial story was moved from the Times sports page to the front page and was the lead story when published. That led to an outpouring emails and phone calls from readers wanting to know more.
The thought of a book unfolded about as quickly and, after some convincing of the modest Barta, Drape arrived in Smith Center, found a rental for he, wife Mary and son Jack, and moved in to personally track the 2008 season.
Smith Center went into the season having gone undefeated four straight years, including state championships at the end of each. Drape’s task was to report on the fifth, which, “being something of a handicapper from my years writing sports,” he thought was likely.
If wrapped in a nutshell, the story centers on Barta’s philosophy: “Try to get a little better every day. Respect each other, learn to like each other and then learn to love each other.”
Barta also said it was “more important than football what the kids do after high school. I don’t think any of them are in jail. They’re all good citizens.”
