Six

In the 1940s and 1950s, unable to field competitive football teams of eleven boys, small high schools across the United States started playing with six, instead. Claremont, South Dakota, was one such place. Bill Welsh strode into town in 1947, started a six-man team at the high school, and six years later had racked up a national record of sixty-one consecutive victories. His career as a high-school football coach is without equal. His role as mentor, coach, and teacher influenced the lives of many young men across the state, but his legacy is the record of the Claremont Honkers and their domination of six-man football in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota.Marc Rasmussen has unveiled the many facets of Bill Welsh's life and shined a spotlight on the all-but-forgotten sport of six-man football and the all-conquering Honkers.In the 1940s and 1950s, unable to field competitive football teams of eleven boys, small high schools across the United States started playing with six, instead. Claremont, South Dakota, was one such place. Bill Welsh strode into town in 1947, started a six-man team at the high school, and six years later had racked up a national record of sixty-one consecutive victories. His career as a high-school football coach is without equal. His role as mentor, coach, and teacher influenced the lives of many young men across the state, but his legacy is the record of the Claremont Honkers and their domination of six-man football in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota.Marc Rasmussen has unveiled the many facets of Bill Welsh's life and shined a spotlight on the all-but-forgotten sport of six-man football and the all-conquering Honkers.

Marc Rasmussen is a fourth-generation South Dakotan, born in Aberdeen. He graduated from the University of South Dakota and currently resides in Seattle, Washington, with his family.