By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.
High school football is a family affair in rural Kansas. On Friday nights, moms and dads, grandparents, brothers and sisters, friends, neighbors and community members gather at the high school stadium for the weekly football game. It becomes a unifying community event. Today we’ll learn more about a Kansas family with a remarkable, multi-generational record of success in high school football.
Last week we learned about Roger Barta, the legendary high school football coach who led the Smith Center Redmen to the nation’s longest high school winning streak. Not only did Roger have a great career, he also coached his son Brooks, who was a tough player and an outstanding athlete at Smith Center, a rural community of 1,665 people. Now, that’s rural.
Brooks went on to play college ball at K-State. These were the bad old days of K-State football, when the team was mired in a 27-game winless streak that would lead to the team being identified by Sports Illustrated as Futility U. But shortly after Brooks Barta arrived on campus, so did another gentleman by the name of Bill Snyder. Things began to change.
“The time and effort (that was required) probably doubled under coach Snyder,” Brooks said. Barta met the challenge of this demanding new work ethic and he saw the results. Continue reading “Brooks Barta, football family, part 2”
