New Jersey story ought to interest Gazette readers in Iowa

The Gazette begins in its Sunday, Dec. 5, sports section a five-part series about Warren Wolf, who came out of retirement to coach a ragged high school football team with few supporting resources.

Trying to get a couple dozen kids together to field a team, the school has been the whipping post for anyone who stepped on a football field with these students. The team won only five games in a string of 75 and entered 2010 with a three-year losing streak.

You read that right -- a three-year losing streak.

The story is from New Jersey, a long way from Iowa and prompting the question: why are you devoting space to a story from so far away?

The answer, Gazette sports editor J.R. Ogden says, is that it is such a good story.

Associated Press national writer Adam Geller tells the tale. We will run the series in The Gazette Sunday, Dec. 5, through Thursday, Dec. 9. You will find an uplifting series about a man who is not ready to quit yet on dedicating himself to making teenagers understand how hard you have to work to be successful.