Salina Journal
SMITH CENTER -- Blankets of various colors and designs that were joined together like a giant quilt provided a picture of the fabric this community's made of.
On Friday afternoon, dozens of blankets were taped to the aluminum bleachers at Smith Center High School's football stadium, strategically placed to reserve seats for the state semifinal game set for Friday night.
"We put blankets on the bleachers on Wednesday, thinking that would be early enough," Dena Dannenberg said Friday afternoon while snipping hair at The Looking Glass, a beauty salon in downtown Smith Center.
But this week it wasn't early enough -- not to keep their traditional seats at the top of the stadium, anyway.
"We were in the middle this time, just because there were so many people up there already putting their blankets up there," said Dannenberg, whose nephew, Grady Godsey, plays for the three-time defending state champion Redmen. "Everyone kind of has their place where they sit. It's kind of like when you go to church: Everyone sits in their same spot.
"It's on the honor system, usually. It's not tonight."
When the Redmen are playing at home, Friday is always a time of excitement and anticipation, Dannenberg said. But the hype is multiplied on this night.
Going into Friday night's game against St. Francis, the Redmen were 11-0, outscoring their opponents 760-0 along the way. A win on Friday night would be 53 in a row for the Redmen and land them in the Class 2-1A state championship game, giving them a chance to win their fourth-straight state title.
Smith Center's monstrous success has attracted the attention of national media such as The New York Times, ESPN and ABC News. The Times story appeared on the front page of the Nov. 7 edition.
Friday night's game drew so much media attention that school officials erected a media tent -- complete with a big-screen video feed of the game and Internet access for reporters to transmit their stories. Media passes were distributed for the first time, and 25 were given out to representatives of various media outlets, including the Denver Post.
High school secretary Gayle Ballhorst stood at ground zero of the media onslaught.
"It's been a real circus, to be honest," Ballhorst said as she passed out media passes. "But it's been fun, it's exciting. It's been real interesting, to say the least. The phones have rang nonstop."
Even with such success, the townsfolk in Smith Center don't seem to take anything for granted.
"Winning never gets boring, no," Jim Stoller, a 1964 graduate of Smith Center High School, said with a big laugh while working on a cup of coffee at Paul's Cafe on Friday afternoon. "Not to me, anyway. You better enjoy the days of winning, because some day, you're gonna lose. It's just a matter of time."
Even facing an opponent as strong as St. Francis, which was 11-1 and had outscored its opponents 127-36 in three playoff games, the Redmen Nation showed little more than polite concern that the streak would end on Friday.
"I'm a little biased, but I think Smith Center's probably gonna win the game," said Mike Rice, whose son, Kerby, was the starting fullback before being injured earlier in the season. "I don't think St. Francis can match their line play."
Facing a team that has beaten opponents by an average of 69-0 this season, St. Francis fans were cautious in their optimism.
"I think it's going to be a better game than most people expect," St. Francis fan Steve Schultz said. "I'm sure it's intimidating, but St. Francis has been here (in the playoffs) the last three years. I think they'll be ready."
Brad Lare, one of more than 3,000 fans in attendance, came from Phillipsburg to cheer for St. Francis -- and against Smith Center.
"I want to ruin their season," said Lare, who suffered losses to Smith Center every year when he played for Phillipsburg High School from 1976-80. "I've dealt with Smith Center since I was a baby. They're tough. They've got everything."
Not everyone who came from out of town to see the game was rooting against Smith Center.
Seven members of the Phillipsburg football team -- which lost 74-0 to Smith Center on Sept. 14 -- not only attended the game but wore only body paint from the waist up in supporting friends who play for the Redmen. They stood in the front row of the standing-only student section, and each time the Redmen scored, they gave war whoops as they paraded up and down the track in front of the home crowd.
"The fans love it," said Adam Bowman, 18, who wore an Indian headdress he picked up from a costume store in Hays. "They wanted us back."
The group of seven showed up in costume for all of Smith Center's playoff games, Bowman said, and they get free hot chocolate to help them combat the chill of going shirtless.
"We're all right," he said, "as long as the wind doesn't pick up."
Bowman and his friends got plenty of exercise celebrating Redmen touchdowns on Friday night, but not as much as usual.
Smith Center kept its winning streak alive with a 44-6 victory, scoring its lowest point total of the season. If there was a victory for St. Francis, it was that the Indians had the honor of being the first team this season to score on the Redmen.
Next Saturday, if the Redmen can beat Pittsburg-Colgan at Hays, Smith Center's seniors will have won state championships in every year of high school.
And Smith Center likely will be a ghost town on that day.
"I think if you look around tonight, you kind of see what it is," senior Jared Hayes said when asked what Redmen football means to his hometown. "It was the most packed I've ever seen it tonight. It's something the community lives for, and it brings us all together as one big family."
n Reporter Darrin Stineman can be reached at 822¬-1416 or by e-mail at dstineman@salina.com.
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