This afternoon, Friday, March 21, as I was traveling
down Park Street, in front of Armstrong and Keller, something caught my
eye. I looked to my left and noticed the lights to the softball field were
coming down. I guess it was the voices from the past that made me hang
a left in front of the run-down field. As I pulled alongside the softball
field, the first thing I noticed was the stands.I remembered the first
time I saw those stands. I was a senior in high school and I came to visit
Harding. My college friend brought me to see a men's championship softball
game. The stands looked as if they were going to explode with people. The
noise was deafening and the cheers were exciting. When I saw all this,
I simply could not wait until I came here to be a part of such an even,
either as a player or as a spectator.
Last year, the school decided to tear down the old
softball field behind the library and turn it into a parking lot. Again,
as they were tearing down the field, memories flooded my mind. I remembered
the huge mud fight we had as freshmen during Student Impact. I remembered
hitting my first A-team homerun for my club.
As time went on, I learned to let the field go. But
every so often, I'll take time out to look over the fields that many here
have no clue even existed and I remember my first football game or a moonlight
stroll. Now comes this new challenge of the loss of the Keller/Armstrong
field.
As I sat there, I saw what used to be the roll call
of social clubs lined up against the fence. I saw the scripture that's
been there for I don't know how long. Then I looked at home plate and thought
of all the feet that had touched it. Feet that belonged to such men as
Lanny Tucker, Rodney Ashlock, Tquan Moore, and Darren Bonnum; and to such
women as Tammy Bartch, "Moke" and Shanna Lumpkins.
To these feet and to mine, the field was much more
than just a nice collection of dirt. It represented something much more.
Yes, the fields, all of them, meant so much more to us than what many think.
These fields, these fields of dreams, represented a golden age and a way
of life-a way of life where you've pured your heart out for your team against
the foe, then afterwards you came together as one to praise the God of
Heaven and of those fields in prayer for allowing such a thing to happen.
It was on those fields where heroes were born and legends
were created. But, as the size of Harding grows, so must the campus-and
I will not deny the inevitability of things to come. A new generation will
come to Harding and create their own memories with the facilities they
have. But I fear they will never have the same sense of family and closeness
that my friends and I and all those before me had between the sidelines
of every field and the walls of the old student center and the lobbies
of the girls' dorms.
And I just want someone, anyone who might read this,
to know that every time a bulldozer pulls up dirt, or a tractor forces
another light pole down, or a shovel plunges into the soft dirt, it's not
only the dirt and the fields being torn up. It's my heart.
It greatly depresses me to have to see such a thing
happen. But I promise to everyone who played on those fields that as long
as I'm alive, your efforts, your games, your laughs, your tears, your yells,
your heroics, your prayers and your memory will never be forgotten.
Scott Thibodeaux
Freshman class of 1992
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