The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
3-10-2010 column
February closed out in golden fashion this year with the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
We rushed to finish chores every evening so we could experience the Olympics with the athletes.
We twisted and turned around the gates with Lindsey Von as she flew down the ski slopes.
We flinched with shots on goal in the gold medal hockey match.
We marveled at spinning figure skaters who could then skate in a straight line after completing 20 tight revolutions.
We held our breath at the ariel acrobatics of snowboarders as they reached the sky.
The gold medals captured our imagination and generated a feeling of awe. The medals were the ultimate reward for the hard work and dedication by these amazing athletes.
I wondered what it would be like to see a medal up close. They look so stunning and magical draped around the athlete’s neck. Would the “magic” of the moment be felt through your body if you held it in your own hands? Probably not. It wasn’t as if I had sacrificed anything to win it. I would never come close to seeing an Olympic medal, let alone holding one. When am I going to learn to never say “never”?
As Mark and I went through Olympic withdrawals we turned our focus to the next upcoming event, the 10th Annual All-Breeds Dairy Convention in Willmar. The convention is like a family reunion.
There is plenty of food, conversation, trips down memory lane as we review family history and meeting long lost relatives.
As dairy farmers, aren’t we just one big family with common roots in the land and animals regardless of where we farm? We may not share genetics, but we share a common bond of hard work, honesty, family and farm that ties us together as tight as any blood relation.
Even though we didn’t have to milk cows during the convention, we still managed to be a little late for the Friday evening banquet.
By the time we made it to the hall, all the tables in the back of the room were filled. Jeanette, Bob, Mark and I were then shown to a table in the front. As we settled in and dished up our salads, we began to wonder who would fill the empty seats at our table. It turned out to be a “long-lost dairy cousin”.
A large barrel chested man grabbed the chair in his massive hands. He sat down looking rushed and relieved to have finally made it to our banquet. He had left Utah at 3 a.m. to be with us this evening.
As he caught his breath, he flashed a good ol’ country boy smile to everyone at the table. He was the guest speaker for the night. He was also Roulon Gardner, the 2000 Gold Medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling at the Sydney Olympics!
For the past ten years, Roulon has been sharing his story and his medal with audiences. Most people think it is a novel idea that he grew up on a family dairy farm in Wyoming and would eventually defeat the world’s best heavyweight wrestler in history at the Olympics for a gold medal. However, Roulon credits his dairy background for his success on the mat and in life. He learned at an early age the value of hard work and sticking with something you love to do, even when you are tired and worn down.
Step by step, Roulon took us through his life leading up to the “miracle on the mat” in Sydney, Australia. The training and conditioning was intense. He talked about “grind matches” of continuous wrestling for two solid hours! He said that not only were they conditioning their bodies, they were also training their minds.
After the first 45 minutes you were exhausted, but you were almost half way there. After wrestling for 90 minutes you didn’t feel tired anymore, because the end was in sight and you were going to make it. When the match was done, he would go running. He said the grind matches were like the daily struggles on the family farm, working through barriers of pain and exhaustion to complete the job. No one trained harder than Roulon and he says no one works harder than farmers.
During the introduction of the gold medal match, the Russian wrestler was already being lauded as the victor. He had already won 3 gold medals, 9 World Championships and had not lost a world competition match in 13 years. This was Roulon’s Olympic debut with no medal credentials. The announcer said the only thing in Roulon’s favor was his conditioning. The long “grind matches” paid off for Gardner. He won, outlasting the Russian to win the gold medal in overtime! No one believed that Roulon had a chance, except for Roulon himself. He believed he could win, because no one worked harder.
His mental and physical conditioning would be put to the ultimate test two years later when he was stranded in the mountains after a snowmobiling incident. He survived -25 degrees overnight temperatures, but both feet were frozen solid. Doctors didn’t believe his feet would survive. Roulon did. Two years later he won the 2004 Olympic bronze medal. Reporters asked him how he felt to have failed to win another gold medal. He replied that he succeeded. He made it back to wrestle and left everything on the mat. He didn’t let anyone else’s assumptions dictate his success.
When we hit that wall of doubt and wonder why in the world we are farming, just remember that life is a long “grind match” and we will only win if we continue to give it our all.
Roulon and his gold medal have traveled over 800,000 miles in the last 10 years. The medal still looks great and still has that “magic” when you hold it in your hands.
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As their 4 children pursue dairy careers off the farm, Natalie and Mark are starting a new adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their Minnesota farm. Natalie grew up in Stronghurst, the daughter of Becky and the late Larry Dowell.
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