LITTLE RIVER, Kan. — The Little River Redskins football team ended their 2020 season with a championship win, which was at a time when many things in the world felt uncertain, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stephanie Prince Young, a local journalist from Little River and paraeducator at McPherson High School, began the journey of writing about the team’s historic season and connection to Little River legacy in mid-December 2020.
“The state championship in 2020 was at the end of November, and two weeks later, after all the excitement had kind of died down, I got to thinking about the whole season,” Stephanie said. “My son was a freshman on that team, and after all they went through that season and then to have an incredible, historic championship game, I thought, wow, this is really something special.”
Over the course of four years, Stephanie conducted interviews, carried out research, wrote, and navigated the self-publishing process to bring her book, Rise Up: Incredible 8-Man Football Season During America’s Pandemic: And the Century of Sports Legacy Behind it, to life.
The players were the biggest inspiration for Stephanie. She didn’t know much about football or have much interest in it until her son, Brady Obley started playing in 8th grade, in 2019.
“But once I saw it through his eyes, the game itself became something different,” Stephanie explained. “And then to have him live that whole season, not knowing if they were going to get shut down at any moment, for the players to keep showing up every day, to go into remote schooling to protect their season, that’s what inspired me.”
Stephanie broke the Redskins’ 2020 football season up into three main focus points:
- COVID – Wearing masks to school, being quarantined the last five weeks of the season. Teams throughout the state were going down without ever getting to play in the playoffs. Everyone was also going through the “fear of the unknown” at the time.
- The Underdogs – The Redskins were the underdogs that season. They had two losses. Everybody had written them off, so it was a very unexpected win.
- 8-man legacy – The players on that team have a direct ancestral connection to the very first eight-man game ever played in the state of Kansas. Stephanie shared that it was at Windom in 1956. (p.118)
Faith was another big topic brought up in the book, how it shaped many of the coaches and players throughout their careers and lives.
Stephanie noted that if it were any other year, it would have been like a Cinderella season and a fun story to tell, but with COVID-19 and 100 years of sports legacy on top of that, there was a lot more magic there.
Cheyenne Johnson, Ad Astra Radio intern from Moundridge High School asked Stephanie if the players left a legacy or influence for future teams and if they come back home to support the younger teams.
The support from former athletes and the community is something Stephanie really loves to see in Little River.
“For more than 100 years, the Little River community has encouraged and celebrated its athletes. The sheets with slogans cheering on state-bound athletes still come out on Main Street and new families have started placing huge plywood signs north and south of town whenever a team or an athlete is headed to state…” – (Prince Young, p.260)
Stephanie also gave an example in the book where little boys are lined up on the sidelines watching the big guys play and compared it to how the players have left their legacy for future athletes at Little River.
She added that it was like they were showing them what was possible. Even in a small town, they could do it too. The football win was the beginning of the latest string of success for Little River sports.
Since 2020, The girls volleyball team has achieved three consecutive state championships, while the cross country and football teams have also made it to state, with the football team becoming runners-up in two consecutive state championships.
Girls basketball were runners-up in state last year, baseball went to state and there were a few tracksters who went to state as well.
In the book, towards the end, a timeline of Little River town and athletic history is shown beginning with the establishment of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821. The list contains school history, coach history and state championship titles through the years.
“Little River has been so blessed with coaches, you know, all through the years, but right now, there’s two really legendary coaches there,” Stephanie said.
Shane Cordell has contributed to numerous state championships and although he coached track and football for many years and led the Redskins football team to state championships in the early 70s, his accomplishments as the girls head basketball coach have given him the most recognition throughout the state. The girls basketball team had a 91-win streak from the mid-nineties to 1998, then passed the 600-win mark in 2014.
After many other achievements and recognitions through the years, Cordell was officially inducted in the KSHSAA Hall of Fame in 2021.
“In 2020, Little River had been to 10 football state championship games, and Cordell has been a part of every single one of them, first as a player, then as a coach,” Stephanie shared. “He’s now a bus driver, and his grandson was playing on the team.” Getting Little River history from him was critical for Stephanie.
When Coach Ayers came to Little River in 2019, he already had a good football record and Coach Cordell had been sort of a mentor to him.
“When he [Ayers] won in 2020, he became the only 8-man coach to have won state at three different schools, and one of only two in the state that have ever done it,” Stephanie said. “The other is an 11-man coach. So, here you have these two legendary guys in this small town, and that’s just pretty cool.”
Stephanie thanked all who helped provide research material, spoke with her and encouraged her along the way while the book was coming together. She acknowledged faith being a driving force as well.
She gave a shoutout to the volunteers at the Young Historical Library (founded in 1990) as it is a “treasure trove” of Little River history and the four volunteers were very helpful.
The community, Stephanie’s son, husband Jason Young, and many others along the way were also very supportive.
“I work now at the high school as para, but he [Jason] and I have a car lot in Great Bend, and so for most of the book, I’m self-employed, and so I spent a lot of time away from work, getting the interviews done and writing,” Stephanie said.
Stephanie is grateful to have had the opportunity to document this story.
“I really believe that Little River is a very special town, and I felt like their story needed to be told,” Stephanie said. “Not only this win streak in basketball that Shane Cordell had, this football legacy that we have, and now volleyball, but we had an Olympian. We had the first 8-man game in the state. There’s such a rich sports history there and I just really felt like that needed to be told.”
She hopes that the young athletes in Little River can read the book and realize their potential and for anyone interested in writing a book, Stephanie said that it’s definitely possible with the way Amazon works.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s so rewarding,” she said.
You can find Rise Up: Incredible 8-Man Football Season During America’s Pandemic: And the Century of Sports Legacy Behind it on Amazon or by contacting Stephanie Prince Young on Facebook. The Garden of Eden Heavenly Meats & Groceries in Little River is currently selling the books as well.
Listen to Stephanie Prince Young’s Interview on Ad Astra Cares here
