That is Thomas hamming it up front and center. He ran onto the court and lined up with his classmates and got recognized for perfect attendance during halftime at a Gardner-Webb men’s basketball game. Gardner-Webb partners with local elementary schools, giving kids a free ticket who have perfect attendance for the month. It was Thomas’s first game in a “basketball stadium,” as he calls it, and he watched the game enthusiastically, leading cheers of “defense,” often when Gardner Webb had the ball–we’re still working on game fundamentals.
Watching him, I couldn’t help but remember my own impassioned fanaticism when I was about his age. I have always been an NC State fan and my big brother was a Duke fan. It thrilled my heart whenever Duke lost, which in those days rarely happened because they had Grant Hill and Christian Laettner. My dad and I were in Houston, Texas, visiting his cousin, when Grant Hill hurled the basketball down the court with two seconds left, when Christian Laettner caught it and beat the buzzer, beating Kentucky and depriving me of my brother’s suffering.
The stakes were not so high in this game between the Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs and Brevard Tornadoes, and Thomas has no brother, whose suffering brings joy, but he quickly became invested in the outcome, even if he forgot, from time to time, which team he was cheering for. A cheerleader threw him a rally rag and he maniacally whirled it above his head, and it was his most prized possession until I brought back Air Heads and Nerd Clusters from the concession stand, which was admittedly a bad decision on my part but I had waited in line for a long time and they had just run out of popcorn. What can you do?
Thomas chomped. He cheered. He danced. He had an all around good time, and afterwards we went to look at Christmas lights in town.
There is a certain physicality needed to farm–namely, the ability to kick. However, as a demographic group, Southerners have tended to be suspicious of kicking, likely due to its close association with the sport we call “soccer.” There are many reasons why southerners distrust soccer. Some fear it’s a scheme of the global new world order, others believe it’s unnatural for a species with opposable thumbs, and others dislike the tall socks. Whatever the reason, soccer has never really caught on in the South. It even ranks lower than other niche sports, like Nascar and competitive eating.
I, for one, am a fan of competitive eating and Nascar and soccer. All three sports have virtues. All three sports foster skills that have applications to farm life. For instance, gobbling up large amounts of meat in a single sitting can free up freezer space after you catch a trophy largemouth bass on Friday and need to thwart aesthetic decay before taking it to the taxidermist on Monday. The ability to make left turns and drive continuously in circles, without losing interest or dehydrating oneself due to excessive drooling, is fundamental to many common farm tasks, such as plowing, drilling, and bush hogging. Farm life is rife with kicking, in various forms and for various functions.
Take, for instance, your common shovel kick. Any ole person can stomp a shovel, but a former soccer player has a competitive advantage in a drought. Why a farmer might be trying to dig a hole in a drought is irrelevant. It could be to plant a plant, dig a well, bake a potato, or dig his own grave–it doesn’t matter. What matters is form and the downward thrust needed to penetrate hardened red clay. Someone who is skilled in the movement and manipulations of the leg, who can stomp efficiently and powerfully without tiring and without resorting to jumping up and down on the shovel (a desperate and inefficient move often attempted by former basketball players), will be more drought resistant as a farmer.
Another example: anybody who has ever had chickens also understands the importance of footwork. Despite having tiny brains, chickens instinctively know which way you want them to go. They use this instinct to go the opposite direction. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because a farmer was on the other side. To prevent chickens from moving against the grain and going against your wishes, developing a good trap will give you a leg up. In fact, a leg up is a good way to describe a trap, a soccer move in which you hold your leg up and to the side to slow and stop the movements of an incoming soccer ball or domesticated fowl. Remember, the goal is merely to slow and stop the rogue movement of the chicken, not to punt it, so again the soccer player has a foot up, even against a farmer who is a former punter.
David Beckham demonstrate proper trap form. Imagine a chicken where the soccer ball is.
The trap should not be confused with the slide tackle, a more advanced soccer move best used to play defense against fleeing pigs. If pigs evade your slide tackle, you’re better off acquiring the services of a former cross country runner. Although they may not be experts in kicking, they know how to run across hill and dale, which is the primary skill needed when pursuing pigs.
A slide tackle. Imagine a pig where the soccer ball is.
One final example: The heel kick is used in soccer to pass the ball backwards and commonly used in farming to unhook equipment from tractors. Simply raise your foot up, over, and inside the three-point hitch arm. Then, using your knee as a fulcrum, swing your foot backward, and wallop the inner hitch arm with your heel. This will either dislodge the hitch receiver from the pin or dislodge your foot from your leg. If the latter, soccer players have a considerable advantage because most are ambidextrous with their feet, meaning the loss of a dominant foot would have less downside for a farmer who is a former soccer player.
A Heel Kick. Imagine a three-point hitch arm where the soccer ball is.
I could go on and on, but the point here is soccer is a valuable sport that can be used to develop skills, specifically kicking skills, that can be beneficial to farmers. For that reason, maybe one day soccer will gain acceptance and popularity in rural areas. Until then, please keep my secret that I like soccer between the two of us. If it got out, it could really hurt my reputation in the farming community.
