The oldest sport is gearing up in Pea Ridge
Could football benefit?
The world’s oldest sport is having a big resurgence this season in Pea Ridge as the Blackhawks have been fielding highly competitive teams for both boys and girls squads.
With the girls taking a state title indoors and the boys a micro-millimeter away from a runner-up trophy in the same meet, both teams are considered top threats in this years in this year’s outdoor competition. If both boys and girls teams could sweep the varsity district titles, that would be something that hasn’t happened at Pea Ridge maybe ever, and certainly not in the last 25 years.
Track and field has its roots in running competitions that were written about almost 4,000 year ago. About 2,800 years ago, the Greeks started track and field competitions that morphed into the ancient Olympic Games which was eventually taken over by the Romans and run into the ground, laying dormant until the modern Olympic Games were re-ignited in the late 1800s.
The first Olympic race was the stade, a unit of measure approximately 180 meters. They built bleachers of a sort around the race surface, which led to the naming of sporting facilities “stadiums.” They added the race called a diaclos, which was about a 400 meter distance. They then added races later by doubling the distances like the 800 and 1,600.
The first field events were long jumping, then later the discus and javelin. Interestingly, the first long jumpers carried heavy stones in each hand, whirling their arms around when they took off from the ground then using the stones for counter weights while they were flying through the air, then tossing them before coming down. I wonder how that would work today?
The first Olympics were actually a training ground to keep their soldiers battle ready when they were not actively engaged in fighting wars. Javelins and discus implements were also part of their weaponry so it was good to keep their soldiers in a state of readiness. The ancient pentathlon consisted of a 200 meter race, a long jump, discus, javelin with the winners of the first four events wrestling it out for the top award, which was a hat of leaves, women slaves and other considerations.
One ancient Olympic event was the Pankration, a kind of wrestling/boxing event where the only thing you could NOT do was bite your opponent. You could break his bones, choke him, dislocate joints, rip out hair, tear off ears, but you could not bite him. After all, they had to have some semblance of civilized behavior. One famous pankration victor was a man named Archion. He was getting choked to death but before he died, he made one last mighty effort to crush his opponent’s ankle. His opponent signaled his surrender, giving the gold to Archion, who died a few seconds later.
One famous Olympian winner was a woman, Kyniska of Sparta. Women were not allowed to compete for awards, but it turns out, horse races saw the awards go to the horses themselves, which really seems kind of fair when you think of it. Kyniska’s dad owned the horse she raced to win, so the award went to him as the owner of the actual winner, and he in turn gave it to her.
The most famous Olympian was Leonidas, the king of Sparta who led the 300 Spartans into their legendary battle against 10,000 Persians in the famous suicide mission which saved the Greek peoples. Leonidas won 12 first places, winning three events in four Olympiads in a row. He won the 200, the 400 and the 400 wearing a suit of armor.
Back to Pea Ridge, while the Greeks of old used track and field to prepare their men for battle, the sport has long been used by football programs to prepare their athletes for battle of another kind.
Track and field around the world is a summer sport, with cross country being run from January to March. In the U.S., track was developed as a spring sport with a whole lot of programs using it to develop speed, agility, and endurance for their athletes to have in the fall. A nationally honored football coach, Chuck Kyle of Ohio, cited three reasons why he though football players should participate in track.
The first reason was to find an athlete’s form. Refining running technique can be the difference is getting tackled or having that extra step or even half step that leads to a breakaway touchdown, or running down an opponent’s running back.
A second skill is learning how to jack up the speed from a still position, something has great carry over from the track to the gridiron. Flying starts, the kind relay runners use, going from half speed to full speed in an instant, is the same talent needed by receivers or defensive backs.
The third thing that is so important is learning that more speed requires less effort. Athletes learn from track, if coached properly, how to relax the body and how to exert the minimal amount of energy to achieve the fastest speed. Doing so will conserve an athlete’s energy and increase production at the same time. When I ran the 400 in high school, I often hit the 200 mark in 23.3, but when I ran the open 200, I could not get under 23.6. The difference was, I ran the 400 in my comfort zone but I pressed the 200, which slowed me down.
Fifty-six percent of NFL football players competed in track, with a heavy majority of running backs and defensive backs doing so. Quite a few of the top drafted running backs out of NCAA colleges were track athletes, meaning they were fitter, leaner and overall better athletes.
The biggest thing that track might teach athletes, beyond the physical training aspects, is the competitiveness. Track is competitive, and the more competition that athletes experience, the more competitive they become.
My old coach told me he could tell how competitive a football team was going to be from how good their track team was, especially in the hurdles, sprints and middle distance events. He said that his first order of business was always developing a good 4x400 relay team. Sure enough, the year (1971) he developed eight athletes who could run 52 seconds or better in the 400, that fall his team won their first state football title. Four of us ran 51.0 or better, and three of those guys were football All-State that fall.
Here in Arkansas, I remember Cedric Cobbs from Little Rock when he ran for JA Fair High School. He ran the 200/400 combo, running the 400 right at 48.0. That fall, he became the greatest freshman running back in Razorback history with amazing speed and he planned to run for the Razorback track team. However, he got with a group of students who persuaded him to give up track and hang with them when he wasn’t in spring football drills. The result was that he lost a step the next fall, had injuries, and just sort of faded away from what many thought was going to be a great NFL career.
Competing in track can give you an edge, both physically and mentally. It is an edge that a lot of football athletes don’t utilize anymore. It is good to see it coming back to Pea Ridge.