ARGYLE, Minn. — The northwestern Minnesota towns of Stephen and Argyle, populations 708 and 656 respectively, are separated by nine flat miles of soybean and wheat. The highest point between them is the mounded dirt that elevates the railroad tracks connecting their grain elevators. Since consolidating their schools in 1996, they have dominated nine-man football, never missing a state semifinal.
The Stephen/Argyle Central offense includes lineman Kolby Gruhot, who wears a prosthetic.
With a state-record winning streak and four consecutive nine-man state championships, the Stephen/Argyle Central Storm has the characteristics of a high school football powerhouse. Carrying the weight of two small, declining farming towns on its shoulders, the team also manifests much larger challenges confronting towns like these throughout the Midwest.
The impact of changing demographics and farming technology in this region is apparent in the student body and, on Friday nights, on the football field.
Consolidation has brought Stephen and Argyle football glory, but the towns are shrinking and growing older. The average age in Marshall County, home to Stephen and Argyle, is 40, 10 years older than the state average. Almost a fifth of the population exceeds the age of 65, a 50 percent jump above the state average.
“It’s young people moving off the prairie and into the city,” said Tom Gillaspy, the state’s demographer.
The change is seen most starkly in the school populations. The Stephen/Argyle student body for 7th through 12th grade was 50 percent larger a decade ago, falling to about 180 from 270. It is no different in other rural towns in Minnesota.
“Boy, there’s just so many school districts with multiple names,” Gillaspy said. “You get to the point where you start adding three names, or four names, and then they become initials, or a region, like Norman County West, and eventually it will just be Norman County.”
One of Stephen/Argyle’s biggest rivals is Kittson County Central, composed of Lancaster and Kittson Central, which is a combination of the towns of Hallock, Kennedy, Humboldt and St. Vincent.
In 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner said the American frontier was closed. But, as the Great Plains Restoration Council pointed out, west of the Mississippi River, the number of counties with six people or fewer per square mile has increased, from 388 in 1980, to 397 in 1990, to 402 in 2000.
“Many places are turning back to frontier,” Gillaspy said.
Just after dawn in Argyle one day in August, with the lights still on and the northern Minnesota fog hanging over the practice field and the wheat stubble that spreads beyond it for miles, offensive lineman Kolby Gruhot crouched his 6-foot-1, 230-pound frame into a three-point stance. The fingertips of his calloused right hand dug into wet grass. His right calf extended to a prepped foot ready to push off, and where his left calf would be, a metal rod picked up dew before disappearing into Gruhot’s black cleat. Having lost part of his left leg in a lawn mower accident when he was 3, Gruhot wears a prosthesis below his knee.
After the cadence, he sprung up, blocked a defensive end and barreled ahead. The rod revealed itself only after his sprint, on his way back to the huddle, in a slightly leaned gait that looked something like a strut.
When Gruhot opens holes on the line for the senior running back Kyle Gratzek, he leaves him with something like frontier to run through: up to 99 yards of short grass and only five men to the goal.
Nine-man football is the province of small towns in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. “It’s simple,” said Nic Thompson, the Storm’s defensive back coach. “Nine-man just doesn’t have tackles.”
In Minnesota, it began in the mid-1960s after teams evolved from six- and eight-man football. Now, with 81 teams, it represents the state’s largest class. To qualify, high schools need to have fewer than 165 students. Stephen/Argyle Central has 111, 68 of whom are boys.
“Good for football,” Coach Mark Kroulik said. “Tough for finding a prom date.”
Three quarters of those boys play football. “That is why they’re winning: They’re not missing an athlete,” the former coach Warren Keller said. “And even if you don’t play, you’re still a part of the team.”
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