Pirates on the Prairie

Pirates on the Prairie captures a very special time in tiny Halstad, Minnesota, in the fertile northern prairieland known as the Red River Valley. In 1952 Halstad was a farming community of 590 predominantly Norwegian townspeople. In a "perfect storm" of athletic talent, adult involvement and yes, some good luck, the high school basketball and baseball teams played David to all the Goliaths of Minnesota. Fifth-grader Clarence Stennes was among the awestruck kids who saw this miracle year play out, and fifty years later his enthusiasm and appreciation were the engine that brought this book to life. He enlisted Minnesota writer Eric Bergeson to the project and the rest was history -- a delightful history indeed. The early chapters of the book set the stage for the Halstad of 1950: Norwegian settlement in the Red River Valley in the 1870's, small farm holdings, the cultural divide between town and farm, the strength of the Lutheran Church. After the hard times of the Depression and World War II, 1950 brought the blessing of mechanization, which along with rural electrification eased the relentless labor of farming. In 1952 the Halstad Pirates' Starting Five had been playing basketball together informally for years, and had been a growing force in school regional ball since 1949. Principal and head coach Ray Kerrigan (yes, an Irishman in a Norwegian town) had no expertise in basketball but his leadership skills were monumental. Jimmy Akason, Darrel Hesby, Don Thompson, Morrie Holm, and Dale Serum were the starters, but the team had depth on the bench and that allowed them a physical style of play that mowed down the opposition. The basketball story is huge: this little school with a graduating class of 26 went to the tournament, won in the district, won again in the region, and astonishingly won and won again at the state playoffs, finally beating out a school with a senior class of 350 to take third place. In the spring and summer of 1952, the same squad of talented young athletes took their baseball game on the road and won the state title. There's much more to distract a farming town during baseball season but the victory was sweet and celebrated by all. Pirates on the Prairie is a challenge to sum up. Yes, the play-by-plays of the games are tremendously exciting and well-written. In the end, though, it's not really a sports book, but a wide-angle snapshot of a time and place that deserve to be remembered. Bergeson's research is awe-inspiring and his writing style is thoroughly enjoyable. The characters are as real as if they were sitting at your kitchen table, and the 1950s cultural context--the "glory years" of small-town America--is impeccable. It took a village to raise these talented athletes and to encourage them in reaching for their dreams. Halstad, Minnesota must be proud to be that village. Linda Bulger, 2009

Historian, columnist, and native Minnesotan Eric Bergeson presents Pirates on the Prairie: A True Story, the real-life chronicle of the small-town "Pirates" basketball team of Halstad, Minnesota (population 590) in the year 1952. This plucky group of athletes consistently got the better of teams from towns and cities many times larger. Pirates on the Prairie is as much a tour of mid-twentieth century small-town life as it is an exciting sports chronicle, and is sure to appeal to anyone who enjoys true underdog sports stories. Highly recommended.

Perhaps it is easiest to find the town of Halstad by tracing the path of the Red River of the North as it flows between Minnesota and North Dakota. A small settlement founded by Norwegian immigrants, Halstad originally served the surrounding farmland and farmers of western Norman County. Wheat, potatoes, and sugar beets were the cash crops of the community. Its 500 residents could claim Lyle "Skitch" Henderson as a hometown boy, even though he himself said he'd been born in Birmingham, England. But Halstad's pride of place changed forever when its high school basketball team reached the Minnesota state tournament in 1952. That was the year the Pirates of Halstad High School put their town on the map for good. Local journalist Eric Bergeson sets the scene for us by first providing the history of the area; then he introduces the players, coaches, and other figures important to the story. Key among them was principal and coach Ray Kerrigan, an Irish outsider who was short on ball-handling technique but big on motivation. Together with his savvy assistant Larry Macleod and a great Starting Five -- teens who'd been playing together for years -- the team filled two cars and drove across gravel roads to play any opponent of any size, anywhere in MN or ND. Their strategy eventually paid off in the 1951-1952 season. Thanks to Bergeson's edge-of-your-seat retelling, we follow the Pirates as they use their run-and-gun style to overtake their rivals and to advance through the play-off tiers of the sub-district, district, regional, and state tournaments. Along the way, they gain outstate celebrity status and the admiration of basketball fans throughout the Gopher State. Amazingly enough, many of the same athletes return to another state tournament venue three months later, wearing baseball uniforms. But in 1952, basketball reigned; and the story of that Starting Five remains the proudest moment in Halstad history. While turning these pages, you have to admire the purity of the game back in the early 1950s. School gymnasiums were uniquely constructed and had nuances that would hardly be considered "regulation" today. High school coaches didn't have intricate playbooks or focused practice sessions. They had no advance scouts and no team tapes to exchange. If they were lucky, they reached their fans through newspaper or even radio coverage of their games. "March Madness" was infectious but was not yet the full-blown phenomenon it has become, at both the secondary and college levels. And the nostalgia and intrigue that surround such David-and-Goliath stories bring about another sobering thought: Such match-ups will probably never surface again. School consolidations in the 1960s & 1970s and enrollment classifications imposed by state athletic associations have evened the playing fields, so to speak. The championship process has been homogenized. But at what cost? Eric Bergeson has written a compelling chronicle of this team. He was f

The early 1950's were truly the heyday of the small town on the upper midwestern prairie of the United States. While agriculture was mechanized, it had yet to reach the point where large farms were the economic reality, so the small family farms of a few hundred acres were still the norm. This meant that there was an average of slightly more than one family farm per square mile and the people shopped and went to school in the local small town. Most people understood the changes that were taking place, so this was also the first generation where nearly all the children completed high school. Before this time, it was not considered necessary to give female children a formal education and once the male children were old enough, they were put to work on the farm. This true story of the Halstad High School Pirates in Halstad, Minnesota sports teams of 1952 is a look back at what could only be considered an idyllic time. The town is located in the Red River Valley, near the border between Minnesota and North Dakota. It was a few years before television was available and before there were any major sports teams in Minnesota, so the people were forced to create their own entertainment. Two of the most popular forms were high school basketball and town team baseball. At the time, there was no class structure separating the schools due to size, so the smallest and largest schools played each other. In 1952, the basketball team of tiny Halstad High made it all the way to the state tournament, defeating teams from much larger schools and the baseball team won the state championship. This is the story of those teams, although it is even more, it is the story of what a small town was back then. There was the pride of being a part of a viable community and where everyone knew everyone. One of the most significant lines is about how if a child felt threatened or in need of assistance, they simply had to go to the nearest home and they were aided, fed if necessary and their parents contacted. While all of the stars on the basketball team married a local girl, none stayed in the area, for in only a few years, the number of farms declined due to mechanization and the population and the number of local businesses was dramatically reduced. This forced schools to consolidate, so the fierce local pride was diluted into something less. The creation of the system of different classes of schools based on size meant that it was no longer possible for a small school to knock off a much bigger one in the state tournament. Progress is progress and only the naive or foolish will tilt hopelessly at it. However, there were some things that were better back in the early fifties and this book captures much of what should honestly be missed.

This book is a lot more than just another sports story. Its socio-economic underpinnings resonate deeply with anyone coming of age in the late 40's and early 50's in rural and small town America. You don't need to be from the tiny community of Halstad to know the people in this story - you grew up with them. The people, their time, and their circumstances are captured and brought vividly to life by the author. Bergeson nails it. It's a book you won't put down.