Go Cowboys!!

View of coastline from our home in California. It sure was beautiful running along the coast!

Go Cowboys! (4 October 2019)

I hope everyone is having a great week. Sydney’s recent heroics on the football field reminded me of glory years of North Gem High School sports. I couldn’t find any pictures, or any actual evidence of my sports domination, so you’ll just have to take my word for it:).

Sydney flexing and showing off her #20 (same number I wore!) after dominating in a game of football.

My brothers and I all loved sports at North Gem High School because the school was small enough that we got a lot of playing time on the football and basketball teams. I also played on the American Fork High School football team my senior year after we moved to Utah. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t play much. Since we didn’t have cross country at North Gem, I didn’t really know what that was. If I had known, I probably would rather have run on the cross country team, and would probably have contributed more

Caleb, Sydney, Kelsey, Megan, and April photobombing my North Gem football field glory shot (November 2018).

Football was my favorite sport in Bancroft. We were a 4A school, which at the time was the smallest category of school in Idaho, and played 8-man football on a regular 100-yard football field. I played running back on offence and linebacker or safety on defense. We would travel by bus to the other small schools in Idaho, sometimes leaving school as early as 10am to travel the 4+ hours to reach our destination. After the game we would return home after midnight, often arriving after midnight.

North Gem always had a pretty decent football team when I was there, and I remember we went to the Idaho state playoffs, playing in the “Minidome” at Idaho State University, a couple years. It was exciting to play in a big stadium with turf, even though we had to wear our basketball shoes because they wouldn’t allow us to wear cleats on the turf. I remember they had a really big American flag and we felt so small in that big enclosed stadium.

Basketball was also a lot of fun. We traveled long distances to those games as well, but we also had more close games playing bigger schools. We didn’t always win against the bigger schools, but it was a lot of fun. One of my most memorable trips was a JV game my freshman year that we traveled to in a big van. We stopped to get gas on the way there, and everyone went into the gas station to get snacks. Someone noticed the eggnog and decided to buy it. As is often the case amongst groups of high school kids, the idea caught on and soon most of us were carrying quart-sized cartons of eggnog back to the van. The eggnog was delicious as we drank it the rest of the way to our destination. All was well until about halfway through our basketball game and we started noticing that we had more gas than was usual. I think we won the game, but I’m not sure. What I do remember quite well is the stinky four-hour trip home. We were all happy to get outside of that van!

They started up a track team my freshman year at North Gem, and I was of course excited to run. I now know that our training was probably not the best, but we were mostly farm kids in decent shape and we had fun competing. I also ran track my senior year at American Fork where we trained much harder and I got a lot faster over the course of the season.

I learned a lot from high school sports. I learned how to be part of a team and work with others for a common goal. But maybe the most important thing was just learning to be active. We have amazing bodies and staying active is important to keeping them strong and healthy.

My Grandpa Nielsen was a good example of staying active. He would run several miles each day when he was in his 70s. We loved it when he came to visit us in Idaho because he would take us running to the railroad tracks and back. I remember lacing up my basketball shoes to go running with Grandpa. Towards the end of the run he would say “let’s sprint to the end” and we’d all take off, leaving him smiling in our wake.

Marci, Roger, Sydney, and April on a bike ride.

As my older brothers went off to college they picked up other activities that also rubbed off on us. Eldon started mountain biking and soon my other brothers got bikes as well. They would bring their bikes when they came to Idaho to visit and we’d ride up into the mountains. I loved it so much that Lyle and I decided to buy bikes. During one visit to Provo when I was about 15 years old we convinced my parents to take us shopping for bikes. I spent $450 on the Specialized Rockhopper bike that I still have today. It’s been a great investment!

April and Sydney stretching before their first big race.

Eugene and Ron started running marathons in college. That, and Grandpa Nielsen’s runs, helped get me excited about running. So when the Caribou County Fair held its first annual 5K fun run the year before I started high school Wayne and I decided to sign up, despite never having raced anywhere near that distance before. We trained some- I remember running and getting a side ache- and then went to run the race. We gathered in Grace and got on a bus to take us to the starting line which was 3.1 miles outside of town. On the bus ride Wayne was talking with a kid from Grace that was a really good high school runner. He was changing into his racing shoes and offered Wayne his training shoes when he saw that Wayne was planning to run in basketball shoes. He apparently only had one set of training shoes to offer, so I ran in my basketball shoes. The boy that lent Wayne his shoes got first place, Wayne came in second a couple minutes later, and I came in third about a minute after Wayne.

I have loved watching you all be involved in sporting activities and hope the things you learn will help you keep your body strong and healthy throughout your life. Some like running, some like Zumba, some like yoga, and some even like water polo! Of course you will have many other priorities that need your time as well so you may not always be as active as you’d like to be, but hopefully you set apart some time for activities that will help keep you strong and healthy.