The brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends of the South Dakota All-Stars spell out H-A-R-N-E-Y in body paint at the Midwest Regional championship game Saturday in Indianapolis. (Photo Jake Nordbye/IDS)

All great nations have deep roots, and so it is with Harney Nation.

When the boys of Harney Little League took the field Saturday night in the championship game of the Midwest Regional Little League tournament against Kearney, Nebraska, I began to reflect on where they had come from and what they have become.

This year’s South Dakota All-Stars began a year ago in the imagination of manager Kasey McGriff and a small group of Harney coaches, who selected seven 11-year-olds to form the core of the 2010 Harney All-Stars. McGriff knew that they were young, a year away from being a mature team, but he insisted that even though they were small and inexperienced, they were the best players in the league, and deserved their selection. He also knew that in 2011 they would have priceless experience that almost no Little League All-Stars ever have. Those seven now form the veteran heart of the 2011 team.

The twelve members of this year’s team grew up together in the neighborhoods and elementary schools of south Rapid. They go to school together, and have played with and against each other all their young lives, on midget football teams, traveling basketball teams, and Little League. They are, simply put…family, forged by competition.

All summer long, when the Peppers played the Bankers, or the Athletics played the Centsers, McGriff encouraged the boys to keep league play in perspective, to think beyond the final scores and ruffled egos. “Compete hard.” he encouraged. “Fight for your team. But understand that when July comes, league opponents are going to be All-Star teammates.”

These are the roots of Harney Nation, and they should be celebrated. But as the boys in red, white, and blue played deeper and deeper into the All-Star season, they began to have an impact beyond their neighborhoods. They began to catch the imagination of the whole city. Everywhere I went in town, there was electricity in the air about this team. And quiet whispers, “This is a team that can go to Williamsport.”

The boys recognize that somewhere along the line, they crossed an invisible line from Harney Nation to Dakota Nation.

People all over South Dakota responded to Harney’s run toward Williamsport. In the bleachers Saturday night, Madden Pikula’s great-grandfather sat with his grandfather and mother and father. Karla McGriff’s sister from Chicago brought her son to the tournament. Extended families from Rhode Island, Florida and California filled cell phones with texts after every pitch. Consider the wondrous, magical, connection of the 2011 All-Stars to the small farm town of Onida, in Sully County.

Family, friends, and fans of the Harney All-Star team pack the Blue Goose Bar in Onida, South Dakota to watch South Dakota battle Nebraska in the Midwest Regional championship on Saturday.

Three All-Star families have roots in Onida. Second baseman Justin Kraemer’s mother, Jayne, grew up in Onida, and returned from college to teach at Sully Buttes High School. Justin’s grandmother, Linda Knox, taught science and math for over thirty years before retiring, and his grandfather, John Knox, still commutes 30 miles to Pierre where he is the golf coach at Riggs High School.

Kyle Maguire and Hayden McGriff’s grandmother, Deanie Knudtson, also grew up in Onida. In fact, Deanie and John Knox were high school sweethearts before John met Linda, and all three have been lifelong friends. The three grandsons have spent summers in Onida from the time they were infants.

This is a special week in Onida. The County Fair is in full swing, and the 50th anniversary of Onida High School, Class of ’61, has brought alumni together from all over the nation. John Knox and Deanie Knudtson are both members of the class. Linda is one year younger. But neither Linda nor Deanie are in Onida for the reunion. They’re in Indianapolis with their grandsons. When I asked Linda why she wasn’t at the class reunion, she made it clear exactly where her priorities were. “Justin is my grandson. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. The County Fair is this week, but Harney baseball is the talk of the town.”

On Thursday afternoon, Onida gathered at the Blue Goose Bar to watch their favorite sons play against Missouri on ESPN. And Saturday night the bar was packed for the championship game against Nebraska. The Blue Goose is a sports bar, of sorts…maybe the most authentic in the state. Some of the best high school and college sports memorabilia is displayed at the bar, documenting the history of South Dakota sports. Next month Hayden, Kyle and Justin will be delivering a Harney All-Star jersey to the Blue Goose.

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Harney Nation kids and families watching the Midwest championship game in Chadron Nebraska. We are here with our 5th grade Rapid City midget football team.....visiting the Chadron state football team. Shannon and Renn Svenson Miah, Keenan & Dominic McKnight, Scott &Tanner Spencer, Jerome & Tyrese Morris, Jeremy, Jet & Alivia Olson, Quinn Isler.

Great nations aren’t just about place. They are also an expression of core values, founding principles, and again we find Harney’s identity rooted in the values taught by McGriff, and coaches Clark Kraemer and Jesse James. It is easy for talk of values to degenerate into vague clichés and slogans. But here at Indianapolis, surrounded by teams and coaches and families from a dozen states, the principles that McGriff has instilled in his players stand out like neon lights in the darkest night: Family. Hard work. Humility.

In the two weeks before the tournament, they practiced every single day. And in the humidity and heat of Indianapolis, no team has worked harder than Harney. On Thursday, while the semifinal game of the Great Lakes tournament was being played at the main stadium, Harney left the bleachers after the second inning and practiced for an hour on a vacant diamond beyond the right field fence. When they were finished, they marched over to the batting cages, and took batting practice for an hour. Then they took the field and beat Missouri 7-2.

McGriff’s intensity is about respecting the relationship between work and success, and the belief that there are no shortcuts to success. The boys have internalized McGriff’s message and their play shows it.

Humility is the least understood value that makes this Harney team a true expression of South Dakota culture. When I first interviewed McGriff in April he told me how important it was for his teams to be humble, to respect their opposition, to be ferocious on the field and humble in victory.

Jackson McGough celebrates his birthday by watching Harney advance to the World Series on Saturday with his closest friends.

A Little League baseball tournament is a hard place to find humility. We have seen coaches from several teams yell at players, and we have seen over-sized 13 year-old egos strut and act-out on the field. We have seen players yell at teammates, slam their bats in the ground, and throw their helmets in frustration.

Not the boys from Rapid City.

Last Wednesday night ESPN ran a highlight of a Little Leaguer from another region “pimping” his homerun. He was showboating, standing at home plate admiring his good fortune. One night later, when Alan Solano concentrated on the first photographs of his son Zach’s homerun against Missouri, the first thing he said to me was, “Look, you can tell he’s running to first base. He’s not standing at home plate grandstanding.”

Brett Beyer pitched the game of his life against Missouri. His fastball hit 74mph. He never gloated. Rapid City hitters had more homeruns and batted for higher averages than any team in the tournament. They never gloated.

Play hard. Compete to win. Honor the game and your opponent. Be humble. The South Dakota All-Stars Way.

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All of the Rapid City families, fans, and friends in Indianapolis wore blue ribbons in memory of the Rapid City Police Officers who were killed in the line of duty. (Photo Jake Nordbye/IDS)

This has been a hard two weeks for Rapid City and a hard summer for citizens of the Missouri River valley. Everyone connected to this team knows it. Tonight, before the championship game, the entire stadium honored the Rapid City policemen who gave their lives in the line of duty, and Harney families all wore blue ribbons in their memory. But in the middle of tragedy, something wonderful has also happened. A small group of neighborhood boys who began as Harney Nation found their deeper identity this week as Dakota Nation, and they found their identity around values we can all be proud of.

The families that form this team are the cousins of the firefighter who was wounded in the Coal Canyon Fire. They are the neighbors and colleagues of the fallen policemen. They are friends of families along the Missouri River. They have become a glorious, bright shooting star in a long, hard summer.