Communities build champions

With the success the Smith Center Redmen have enjoyed over the past few years, comes a deep loathing from everyone not associated with the team. The Redmen, like the Yankees, Patriots and Red Wings, are constantly up against hoards of people who want nothing more than to see them fall.

I was one of those people.

New York Times writer Joe Drape recently released the book, “Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen.” Drape moved to Smith Center and chronicled the undefeated state championship football season of 2008.

I picked up this book, not wanting to become a fan. I fought with every ounce of my being to resist liking this Kansas football juggernaut.

My fight did not last long.

Reading this book, it becomes instantly apparent the heights the Redmen have reached, are the result of a big hoist from every last member of the Smith Center community. The adults view the school system, and more importantly, the students in it, as the heart and soul of the town. And they are all deeply invested in making sure the kids succeed, on and off the fields of competition.

There is a philosophy in which all students are viewed and even loved, as if they were the biological offspring of everyone in town. It is one singular group; mentors tirelessly working to give the youth every tool, and every advantage necessary to grow into upstanding citizens.

Of course there is a special sense of pride when one’s own kid makes a play, but this community does not talk about my son, as much as our boys.

This is a structure that stoked jealousy in me. Not the kind of putrid, infuriating jealousy caused by a sports dynasty, but a thought provoking, awestruck kind of jealousy.

It is possible for a poison, me first, attitude to creep into the fabric of small towns. Unfortunately, it is a phenomenon that usually starts with the so called, “grown-ups,” and trickles down to affect the youth, who find themselves as pawns in an adult-sized version of a high school popularity contest.

While it is always better to win than lose, the more pressing issue is how my kid performed individually. Because if my kid looked good, then I look good, and have maintained my status within the community. And if I am lucky enough to have my kid play a great game, then just maybe, I will move up in status.

As if high school kids don’t have enough to worry about, trying to maintain their own reputations within the cruel world of adolescence, but they have now been given the burden of maintaining the popularity of…their parents?

And so, athletes enter team sports as lone-wolf individuals, with no real idea what it means to be part of a larger community. They never had a chance to learn what it means to be fully accountable to a group, more important than any individual.

A team may have enough talented players to win some games and have a good year. But the lack of accountability to each other and an unwillingness to accept roles within the group prevents them from having a great year.

And so it goes.

In the world of sports journalism, the temptation while covering a team is to turn they won the game, into we won the game. As sports fans, we do this all the time. However, we did not win, or lose anything.

But what makes high school sports special, is the fact that using we is absolutely appropriate. The sport itself is a small part of the collective effort to raise the youth of a community. And because of this effort, the entire town has its fingerprints all over the product on the field, for better or worse.

Does a tight-knit sense of community support guarantee a seemingly unending, Smith Center-like string of championships?

Of course not.

The fact remains there can only be one champion per class. However, this doesn’t mean only one team per class has achieved greatness.

By the time a student reaches high school, wins and losses start to matter. But the learned ability to work together as a group and improving every day, in an effort to exceed expectations, is much more important.

The current Smith Center winning streak, which is a state record, stands at 67 and counting. It is understandably a tremendous source of pride for the community. But this community is more proud of the young men themselves, than anything they could ever accomplish on the football field.