Winner, South Dakota

Driving US Highway 83 from the Canadian border to the Mexican border is as unvaried as an east-west  I-70 drive across Kansas – only north and south and four times as long. I have been on this pilgrimage since 2011. 

Like my love of faded old polaroids, if I try to rationalize it, the magic disappears. So, I do not - I just accept that is how I am. I made sure Shawna knew of my Highway 83 problem before she agreed to marry me.

Every town has a story. We have found  the best are the ones we stumble onto by chance. The nuggets buried in the landscape for people to access unexpectedly are limitless. Just drive, slowly. 

Today we eat our home made  chicken salad lunch at the Winner, South Dakota City Park. The city population is 1230 and you better top off your gas tank before you leave town. An hour ago, Shawna’s sharp eye caught a weather worn sign on the town’s main street announcing arguably the best college football coach ever,  Notre Dame’s Frank Leahy, grew up here. 

How did the Nick Sabin off the last century get from here to there? Back then, if a young man from a devout Catholic family did not enter the priesthood, the next highest calling was to study at South Bend Indiana’s Notre Dame University. 

Frank Leahy graduated from Winner High School in 1925 where he was a football standout. For the ND Irish he played football as a tackle on Knute Rockne's last three teams (1928–1930) and was part of the 1929 and 1930 National champion teams. Leahy graduated from the university in 1931. 

Leahy returned to Notre Dame to coach four undefeated national championship teams, with an unbeaten string of 39 games (37–0–2) in the late 1940s. 

His journey from the isolation of the High Plains to football sainthood is a compelling portrayal unique to America. The greatest thing you can do in life is to tell a young boy or girl that no matter where they start, they're 'the very best' at something - sports,  art, music - something to build confidence. And the greatest college football coach ever can come from Winner, SD. 

The clerk at the Super Foods grocery on Main Street gave me a simple shoulder shrug when i asked her about Leahy. The one sign on Main Street was the only local acknowledgment we saw claiming this home town Son who made it big. High Plains towns,  I have learned, are next year towns, humble about past achievements. Fortunately, if you poke around enough you will see cool things in humble places. 

All up and down Highway 83 the sense of community is palpable — neighbors helping neighbors, families bound together by like challenges and a common respect for the land they inhabit. That is why we keep coming back. 

Time now to head home.