Today was the state championship games for high school football. The Smith Center Redmen 11-0, played the Centralia Cardinals at Lewis Stadium at Ft. Hays University in Hays, Kansas. There had to be one winner and one loser. Today, the Redmen lost 18-14.
There was disappointment for the players and family and friends right after Thanksgiving, but the entity of the Redmen team, colors red and green, is legendary.{{more}}
It began in 1978 when Roger Barta was hired as a teacher and football coach. The program went from ho-hum to dynamic just by creating ethics to live by, and by getting the entire town behind the team. It just wasn’t a sport now, it was a way of life.
The Redmen won the state championship title into Barta’s fifth year, 1982. The Redmen bus returned home from that game with students shouting, “we’re number one!” The entire view of school and home changed.
Students graduated and students filled their shoes. It was four years later, the Redmen won the state title. Then again in 1999, and a new century turned and the titles taken were of the years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Then in 2009, Centralia ended the Redmen’s winning streak, the longest one in the nation, and fifth straight consecutive state championships.
An article in the New York Times in 2007 by Joe Drape brought national attention, and the writer to Smith Center to write a book. He went to all the games, got to know the players and parents, the town, and Coach Barta. The title was Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen. Coach Barta had always said what he did was for the students, not for himself.
Coach Barta was nearing retirement age, and after the accolades of his coaching career and inducting him into the National Athletic Coach Fall of Fame, a replacement was being sought. In December 2012, Darin Sasse was named head coach.
He had big shoes to fill. Sasse led the Redmen to victory and into state titles in 2017 and 2018. Now in 2019 the third consecutive state title was going to be fought, and if they won, a national record would be gained.
So the Redmen have thankfulness, and even if they didn’t win this state title, they know they are the second best in 1A in Kansas. People respect young men who were once Redmen, because they are successful in life and go on to teach their children to be competitors. Mark Simoneau is one of those who went on to play in the NFL for the Falcons, Eagles, Saints, and Chiefs. Many Redmen went on to play sports in college.
And yes, the ladies in the school are winners also at volleyball and basketball.
Sharon Black has been writing for many years including newspapers, short stories, and as a publisher. She was born in Nebraska and has lived in Kansas most of her life. In her hometown of Smith Center, Kansas, Willa Cather’s hometown is to the north and Bob Dole’s hometown is to the south. Sharon is a press release writer for the National Parks Arts Foundation, and writes for b U n e k e magazine. The biggest project she has accomplished is co-writer of the TV movie Home on the Range. The movie is about the song, which is the state song of Kansas and the lawsuit surrounding it in the 1930s, and finding the rightful author of the song. Sharon is distantly related to the Mississippi writer Eudora Welty.
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