Joe Drape

Simply put, this is a wonderful book about values, small town life, and helping young people become solid citizens. It follows a high school football team in Kansas as it pursues another championship season and approaches an all-time winning streak. However, this is a not a typical narrative about a season in the life of a football team. Although it proceeds chronologically, there is very little suspense in a traditional manner of a sports book - we know from the title that the team again show more goes undefeated. Mr. Drape avoids describing whole games in too much detail, instead highlighting the key moments where a lesson is learned or a relationship is altered or some event occurs where you witness the growth of a player or coach.

The book is full of memorable characters, beginning with the head coach. You can see he takes his charge seriously in not only teaching the game itself, but instilling values and sportsmanship in his players. The assistant coaches, the players, and the good people of Smith Center are all portrayed crisply - usually in a positive light, but as real people with their occasional flaws and weaknesses.

Mr. Drape has a fluid style of writing that is easy to absorb. He described people, places, and situations well, without ever falling too much in love with his metaphors or wordplay. Even though he moved to Smith Center for a year to live the experience, he lets the characters drive the story, and he and his family never become disproportionately important to the narrative.

I highly recommend this book. It is enjoyable to read and inspirational on a number of levels. Based on my experience with "Our Boys," I would be happy to read Mr. Drape's other works because of his writing style, even if the subject matter didn't immediately interest me. show less

An "Early Reviewers" book from LibraryThing, this was something of a surprise pleasure. The Smith Center Redmen football team, with longtime coach Roger Barta at the helm, is going for their 5th consecutive Kansas State high school championship, and to break the state record with 67 consecutive victories. This team has perhaps less talent, size and speed than the earlier Redmen teams, but the author, who takes his family and moves to Smith Center to cover this season, does an excellent job show more of showing how Coach Barta makes the most of the talent he has to work with, and motivates the boys to become just a little better each day - and not just as football players. Football is not my favorite sport; this book touched me for the love, respect, discipline and courage that Coach Barta was able to bring out in his boys, and for the way that the whole small town of Smith Center helped look out for "Our Boys". A more wholesome, less gritty type of "Friday Night Lights" story; it is possible that the author became awed and star-struck by his immersion into Coach Barta's program, and glossed over the dark side of the season. But I have a feeling that this isn't the case, and found this a touching and inspirational read. I hope the boys continue their winning ways, and not just on the field. show less

I live in Texas where it is often said that the two most important sports at high schools and colleges across the state are Football and Spring Football. In such an environment, we are routinely inundated with stories and articles having a “football as a metaphor for life” theme, particularly as each new season is about to begin. Indeed, Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights has set the bar quite high for anyone trying to contribute something new and interesting in this area.

Despite show more those long odds, Our Boys manages to succeed in doing just that. Joe Drape tells the story of the 2008 football season for the Smith Center high school team and its quest for a fifth straight state championship as well as the state record for consecutive victories. For the project, Drape moved his family from New York City to this western Kansas town of about 2,000 people in order to live the entire experience first-hand. This decision proved to be critical as the author was quickly able to integrate himself into the rhythm of life in the town as well as into the homes and hearts of the residents.

One curious thing about the book is that the football sequences themselves are surprisingly bland and unengaging. In fact, there is very little drama at all in the story; the book’s subtitle tells you everything you need to know about how the season turns out. What actually redeemed Our Boys for me is the remarkable sense of community that the author is able to convey. This is really more a chronicle of the collective values and commitment of an extraordinary group of people—and the hard work and personal relationships that define their connections—than it is a narrative about the game itself. Living in Smith Center clearly affected the author deeply and he is able to recreate for the reader much of what made that experience so special.

As Drape tells it, the values espoused by Coach Roger Barta, the larger-than-life figure around whom the entire town coalesces, are simple and compelling: It’s not about winning and losing, it’s about being a team and trying to get a little better every day. These sentiments could easily slip into the realm of clichéd “coach speak”, except for the fact that everyone in Smith Center--from the players to the parents and the other fans--truly believes in them and lives their lives accordingly. The coach tells his team before the season begins that they should start by respecting each other and from that love for one another and collective success will follow. I’m sure that the players thought the coach was referring to football, but it is clear that the people of the town had long since realized that he was talking about so much more.

Our Boys is far from a perfect book—it contains more than a few factual errors or omissions—but it is one that I am happy to recommend. Smith Center is a town that I would love to visit and that has nothing to do with how the high school team performs on the field. show less

Anyone who loves college football has been mourning for the past few years as power after vaunted power has been humbled by scandal. Division I sports is reeling under the weight of investigations at schools such as Penn State, USC, Auburn, Miami and the University of North Carolina, with no end in sight.

Enter New York Times sportswriter Joe Drape and his latest offering, “Soldiers First: Duty, Honor, Country and Football at West Point.” If Drape gets his way, we’ll all view the Black show more Knights of Army as white knights — scrubbed, honorable and dedicated but undersized competitors charging into the teeth of very large, talented opponents, daring to think they can win.

Off the gridiron, these athletes are the same men who’ll loom large one day on the real battlefield — and there’s not a snap or a block, a punt or an interception that approaches the gravity of their lives after the cheering stops.

If ever there was a stirring story to be told, this would be it.

Using the 2011 football season as the backbone of his book, Drape introduces us to a group of players who’ve had their own ups and downs at West Point. Weaving their stories in through a game-by-game recollection of the season, Drape gives us glimpses of their harried, difficult lives as cadets and athletes at the world’s most prestigious military academy.

He reminds us that the glory days of Army football — its Heisman Trophy winners and its national championships — are distant memories, but he encourages us to join in believing that Head Coach Rich Ellerson can restore Army to its rightful place in college football lore.

It is an uphill battle. This head coach, Drape rightly reminds, sits across from recruits’ parents with the reminder that, after graduation, their sons will not be headed for the NFL, but likely for the front lines of war.

The book strums all the heartstrings as the reader is pulled from heartbreak to hope, game by game, and stirred to deep admiration for undersized players who personify selflessness on and off the field. But it fails on many technical points.

While we do learn of numbers related to attrition rates, honor code violations and even coaches' salaries, we miss much in the way of specifics on the lessons Drape is trying to share.

Though he spends much time sharing generalities about the exhausting demands of life at West Point, he misses his opportunity to follow one player through one excruciating day, showing the push and the pressure. Though he spends plenty of time acquainting us with Head Coach Ellerson and the unbelievably high standards to which he must adhere, Drape spends no time offering perspective, whether from former Army coaches or others in the Division I game.

We do meet former Army players who went to war. Some returned with horrible injuries, some not at all. We get a brief glimpse into what an athlete brings as a wartime leader, but one-on-one conversation with former players and their reflections on how West Point football shaped their futures is missing.

In short, Drape seems to have forgotten the old reporting adage, “Show, don’t tell.”

“Soldiers First” will be a staple on the bookshelf of Army fans, Army alumni and former players. They won’t miss what’s not there; they’ve lived it. One wishes the reader could, too.

I won a free Advanced Reader’s Edition of this book through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program. show less