Van-Far was unified when it won a football district championship 25 years ago.

That unity and connection to the community still exists among the surviving members of the Indians’ most recent football district title team. Players from that team were honored at halftime of Van-Far’s 40-0 victory over Farmers Cup rival Mark Twain on Sept. 19.

Brandon Straube was one of the men on the field Friday. Straube’s voice was heard as a team captain and lineman, but his voice can still be heard at every Van-Far home game as the public address announcer. He volunteers to help the program in any way he can and is a Vandalia resident who works at the brick plant in town.

“The team was very unified,” Straube said. “We worked together across the board. Everybody played their part and did their job.”

Nay Douglas ran behind linemen like Straube on that team as a running back. Since then, Douglas is approaching 19 years of service in the U.S. Navy this December. He is currently stationed in Virginia but has been at a variety of places that include California and Japan.

Douglas and his family settled back into the Van-Far community two years ago when recently graduated twins Malik and Tyson Douglas joined the district during their junior years. His son, Cayden, is a sophomore with the current Indians.

“It means the world to me,” Douglas said about the Van-Far community. “It’s my nucleus. No matter where I’m at around the world, whether I’m in Japan or whether I’m in Taiwan, Australia or some random speck of the ocean in the Indian Ocean, the values that surround this community (are with me) like being there for your neighbor, always being there for each other and staying humble.”

Douglas said Van-Far is a special community, where “everyone’s different but everyone’s the same.” People love each other and are willing to help each other, like offering to cut each other’s grass or at any other moment of assistance.

Cale Utterback was also on the line blocking for Douglas. He is at every single Van-Far game as an assistant coach in his fourth year, with a close-range view of his son and senior defensive lineman and running back Evan Utterback.

“We had a great group of kids,” Utterback said. “It was the same with this group – a very tight-knit group.”

Utterback said he had great teammates back in 2000, including Douglas and quarterback Travis Gibson, who is the brother of current head coach and 2000 Van-Far graduate Lucas Gibson. He said sharing the championship with guys like that was special after the Indians beat Louisiana and Cardinal Ritter. Beating Louisiana is a fond memory for Utterback because Van-Far was the underdog and Louisiana was the No. 1 seed.

“Coming in, we knew we had to be more physical than them,” Utterback said. “We were, and that would be my best memory.”

Straube said Van-Far came close to a district title the year before and the team was hungry the next season. He said the Indians were still in the Eastern Missouri Conference in 2000 so they regularly played bigger schools and didn’t play another 1A team until districts. The record wasn’t the best because of that schedule, but Straube said the team felt more prepared for the playoffs.

Douglas said Van-Far didn’t always pick up wins against the bigger schools in its conference but held its own.

“We were at .500 in the middle of the season,” Douglas said. “The EMO was a lot bigger conference back then. I don’t think we lost a game by more than eight points.”

Utterback, Johnny Clark, and Jason Wilson, who died in 2018, were with Straube on the offensive and defensive lines and worked well with Gibson, Douglas and wide receiver Justin Overton on offense. Those who were at the gathering on Sept. 19 included Clark; current Montgomery County girls basketball head coach Joe Basinger; Darby Sharp, who is the father of Indian senior lineman Easton Sharp; Scott Nilges; Justin Myers; Travis Terry; Chris Straube; then-coach Todd Cripe and then-announcer Mark Udelhoven.

Douglas remembers Wilson fondly. He said Wilson was the “cream of the crop” on the line and was called “Mix,” because he was immovable like a bag of cement. Wilson was the anchor on the line, Douglas said, and was the reason why he played with a broken collarbone.

“As a matter of fact, in my freshman year and his sophomore year, he actually broke my collarbone,” Douglas said with a grin. “During Oklahoma drills, coach let him run the ball, and I didn't think he was going to run that hard. Sure enough, he speared me right in my collarbone. We ran that play back again. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I was still dazed because of what happened, and he finished it off, clean break.”

Van-Far football has gone through a lot since 2000. There have been winless and one-win seasons, including four straight seasons with zero or win wins, before the Indians won a district game in 2023 for their first district win since 2014, which ended 18 straight losing seasons. In 2022, Van-Far had to forfeit districts because of a shortage of players.

Straube is happy to see Van-Far football doing well again. His love for football stayed with him after high school when he played for William Jewell College and has continued to now because of the life lessons the game taught him.

“It means a lot that the program is still going on,” Straube said. “It’s definitely had a lot of ups and downs. We got so shorthanded on players that we had to co-op for a few years. I’m glad to see it’s still going here because football meant a lot to me.”

Utterback said it would be nice to make history like Van-Far has done the last two seasons. Instead of 2000 being the most recent football district title, the Indians would like it to be 2025.

“It was awesome,” Utterback said. “When I look back, I’m like ‘Yes, we accomplished a lot doing that.’ I think this team can do the same if they stick together and stay healthy.”