Flashback Tuesday

For this flashback entry I would like to harken back to the college days. I participated as a "moraler" in a Hope College tradition called "The Pull" which features a 3 hour odd year vs. even year tug-of-war competition across the black river. This is not your normal tug-of-war folks, this is intense ... so intense that tractor tires have been snapped and huge trees have been uprooted during practices. My brother Aaron and my brother-in-law John carried on the Odd Year tradition by participating as pullers on the '05 Pull Team. Aaron was in pit 17 and John was the Anchor. They are tough, as you can see from the picture.

"When the 1898 Pull (the first on record) was held, Victoria was queen of England, and William McKinley was president of the United States. Those students of long ago can't have had any notion of what they started, but what a storied legacy it is. The event endures still, with two teams of 36 (18 "pullers" on the rope, and 18 "moralers" serving as their eyes) battling across the Black River every fall.

The Pull has found its way into the national and even international media, from The Guinness Book of World Records (1995, maybe others...) to Sports Illustrated (twice--in 1966 and 1996); from a magazine in Japan (1983) to Australian television (1996). "

ODD YEAR!! Ooh- Rah!!