PRAISE
The most improbable, unabashed love story I’ve read in years.
-Minneapolis Star Tribune
Hoosiers on a football field.
-New York Post
Our Boys delves into the heart of America in a manner that reminds me of The Last Picture Show and Friday Night Lights. Joe Drape crafts a terrific tale that will make you laugh, cry, and think. This is a story about small-town America that will make you shout.
-Jim Dent, author of Twelve Mighty Orphans and The Junction Boys
Joe Drape has caught something deep and beautiful in Our Boys. It is true to the reality of life on the plains, much more than another football story.
-David Maraniss, author of When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi
A great read for all…It is not so much a story about football but about the true meaning of midwestern values, family life, and the spirit of small town Kansas and its special people. I couldn’t put it down.
-Bill Snyder, head coach, Kansas State University
Joe Drape tells the remarkable story of the Smith Center Redmen, not only their success in winning football games, but also in swelling pride for a community and building character in young men…Roger Barta and the people in Smith Center are winners in every sense of the word.
-Bob Stoops, head coach, University of Oklahoma
Our Boys is about far more than football. It’s an inspiring story about how a coach and a community are building young men with the simple values of love, patience, and hard work. This is a great book.
-Joe Paterno, head football coach, Pennsylvania State University
If you want to turn away from the high-voltage auctioneer babble that surrounds big-time, big-money sport, take this trip to Smith Center, Kansas, with Joe Drape. This is organic stuff, a fat and healthy slice of unadulterated American Life. Simply terrific.
-Leigh Montville, author of The Big Bam and At the Altar of Speed
Although Drape traveled to the Midwest to chronicle a record-setting high school football season, the tale he spins ends up being one that transcends athletics, a story of adolescence and smalltown life….he delves into the individual stories on the team: the tough but kindhearted coach who built a dynasty from nothing; the sure-fire college prospect; and the assistant coach’s son, trying to live up to his father’s legacy…With a clear sensitivity toward the difficulties facing the Smith Center players, along with more than a dash of humor, Drape gives the reader a team worth rooting for.
–Publishers Weekly
Drape’s season-long enchantment with this quaint town (pop. 1,931) at the geographical center of the continental United States colors his account as much as his detailed coverage of the Redmen’s incredible 2008 season… the book will certainly appeal to fans of Friday Night Lights and other accounts of small-town sports glory….A feel-good story of youthful drive, great coaching and the value of unflagging communal support.
-Kirkus Reviews
Its [Our Boys] difference, besides being a chronicle of the Smith Center Redman, a high school Kansas football team with the longest unbroken winning streak in high school history, lies in Drape’s approach: he neither swoons over the small-town setting, prettifying it into a fairy tale village; nor treats the real-life characters as freaks or stereotypes. The Smith Center story is story enough… Drape does not have to make up drama to emphasize his themes. We know the importance of sports, especially in a small town, as a way up and out toward larger things… Drape the reporter makes himself invisible but ever-present to the smallest details; this western Kansan town’s stereotypes fade, replaced by more vividly realized personal scenes.
-Steve Shapiro, KC Tribune
A remarkable story . . . In 1990, Buzz Bissinger wrote Friday Night Lights, a chronicle of one Texas town’s high-school football mania. Drape presents a calming counterpoint to that classic. . . . This is an inspiring sports story.
-Booklist
The Smith Center Redmen might just be the best little high school football team in America. The story of how they got there is even better.
-Jim Litke, The Associated Press
