Iowa Barnstormers basketball earns an assist — off the court

The Iowa Barnstormers expected to show off their basketball skills last weekend at St. Louis'- Battle for the Arch, which they did. But off the court Saturday, they provided the weekend's best assist.

The Barnstormers' 10-member 16-and-under squad hopped into a shuttle bus between games and planned to watch the 14-and-under squad at another venue about 10-15 minutes away. Then, their plans changed.

“It got really windy and really dark,” said Barnstormers co-director and 16U coach Greg Stephen. “Then we saw a traffic light that went down and a bunch of trees that went down.

“The traffic just completely stopped because all of these trees were in the road. Cars were

swerving back and forth because of the trees.”

The players still were wearing their uniforms and socks, although they had switched out of their gym shoes to flip-flops. At that moment, the 16U Barnstormers went into action.

“We saw a car over here in the ditch, and they were waving at people trying to get everybody out and stuff,” Stephen said. “So the boys said, ‘Why don't we go help them?'

“So they jumped out and pushed the car out. Then they said, ‘Why don't we get this tree?' So then they moved the tree. Then everybody started honking at them and thanking them. Then the kids got really excited about it and ran off to the next tree and they moved that tree off the road, then the next one. I bet they went about a mile down the road just moving trees.”

The act of social service cost Stephen. The boys ruined their socks, so Stephen hit a Foot Locker before their next game and bought them all new socks.

“That was my contribution to it,” he said.

The wet weather failed to impact on the team's performance, however. The 16U team, which includes local athletes Wyatt Lohaus of Iowa City West, Matt Nelson of Cedar Rapids Xavier, Dubuque Senior's Seth Bonifas and Kyle Haber and Dunkerton's Kory Kuenstling, won all of their five games last weekend by more than 20 points. Other Barnstormers clubs winning titles include the 17U, 15U and 13U teams, and the 14U squad finished second. The 12U team also competed.

But the thrill of winning a tournament title was secondary to the life experience the boys received, Stephen said.

“Five years from now when these kids are sophomores or juniors in college, they're not going to go back and they're not going to remember St. Louis and who we beat, how they did, who won the games,” Stephen said. “But they're going to remember jumping out of the bus and pushing a car out of the ditch. And they're going to remember running from tree to tree and pulling trees off the road with people honking at them. That's the kind of stuff that's going to be lifelong memories for these guys.”

Three 16U team members already have Division I scholarship offers, Stephen said. Bonifas has an offer from Iowa and heavy interest from Wisconsin. Ethan Happ, who plays high school basketball at Rockridge in Illinois, received an offer from Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Iowa Falls' Casey Schlatter has offers from Creighton, Drake and Northern Iowa.