An Ode to The Practice Field

The Currituck Practice Field as it looks on a crisp 2013 summer morning, after the addition of the "Currituck" letters.

For one of my classes at Carolina (in the spring of '13), I was asked to write about a place that holds special meaning for me. Being who I am, I selected the Knights Practice Field in Barco, and wrote the following missive in honor of the much important, yet often overlooked field behind the school:

A Field in Barco

In Barco, North Carolina, there is a field. Actually, there are a multitude of fields within the “confines” of Barco, which is nothing more than yet another census-designated place featuring its own post office in Currituck County. However, there is one field, which for me, rises above the rest in its utility. This field is not one filled with rows of corn destined to supply Morris Farm Market, nor is it any sort of barren field sitting ideally off NC 158. Rather, to arrive at the Barco field that matters most, a driver must turn off the highway, and onto the little side road labeled “bus entrance”. Rolling one’s car down this side road will lead to the back of the high school, featuring a teacher’s parking lot as well as a wrap around road to enable a bus to get in and out while loading and unloading students for school. Beyond this wrap around, going away from the high school is a massive ditch for drainage, with one tiny access path, big enough to get a car or truck through, but not enough for a two-way flow off traffic. Across the path is a chain link fence, and inside the fence is the most important field in Barco.

Outside observers might dispute the afore claim that this field out back of the high school is most important. Surely, they would say, the nicer, more elegant field to the east of this dusty lot is most important. After all, they would mention, it is that field, the game field, Knights Stadium that has the seats and the scoreboard, the PA announcer and the field goal posts. The dinky field? For these observers, the dinky field serves as nothing more than a practice field and its events are meaningless, whereas those that take place on the nice grass at the stadium constitute the body of the Daily Advance articles. To this, I would refute their claims by using the age-old adage of any coach: practice is where you learn to win, therefore without the practice field what use is a pretty game field?

The lot beyond the fence goes north for about one hundred and twenty yards; at which point a batting cage, a fence, and the middle school soccer and softball facilities bound it. In the east-west direction a fence keeps the field from interacting with the woods on the west end, while the open area in the easterly direction goes all the way over the dirt path for cars and towards the high school softball field. But the path is not useful. The real magic is the sixty or so yards between the path and the west fence, some fifty-three yards and four inches, if one is inclined to trust the measurement skills of the head coach. Within these divisions, is the Currituck High School football practice field, in all its glory.

The field itself is not spectacular by any means. Its west end is prone to soggy water buildups. Despite this fact, the five-man sled is situated in the corner, proving an ability to tear up the ground when an unhappy offensive line coach requires his players to drive block it up and down the field. The grass, meanwhile, is dead in the winter, flush in the spring with prickles (which is not ideal for a sport involving ground contact), and by the end of summer is gone entirely, with a giant dust bowl in its wake should the summer be a dry one, or mud if the rains come. But regardless of the texture or the conditions, there is no more special place on earth than this beautiful rectangle.

The practice field holds meaning for me for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it is the inordinate amount of time I’ve spent on it. For nearly four years, from the spring of my freshman year of high school through the conclusion of football season my senior year, I was on that field in every month but December, January and February, most of the time four to six days a week. Perhaps it is the memories I have, memories of the first day of tackling in August, of creating nifty plays on scout D in September, of chatting with buddies in October, of preparing to get slaughtered in the playoffs in November, and of the hope in the spring that the skills I have learned will translate once the pads come on. Perhaps it is the fact that Currituck football means just as much to me as nearly anything in the world, that before I die I would love to see a Currituck championship, or even an appearance in one, since I was not around in 1980 or 1989. Of course to accomplish that very task, the practice field matters, for a championship squad would find itself having been built on this field. But perhaps, just perhaps the true reason I love this field is because it created a special bond between myself and my adopted county and that without this field, my ties to Currituck would have been cut when I left for Chapel Hill and the world. Instead, though, I have a loyalty to my position coach who is now the head coach, and to the legions of fourteen year olds who will step onto the field for the first time to learn its magic first hand. The Currituck practice field is special because it is on that field that I truly became a native son of Eastern North Carolina.

As a player I did not always want to make the walk out to the field. Certainly there were Mondays where I was tired and wanted to go home, Tuesdays where I had homework to do, Wednesdays that I was hungry and Thursdays where I was sore. But, most days, I loved to be the first one out on that field, to throw around a ball before practice and to bask in the glory that is high school football. There were days I loved to push the sled, and days where I groaned that we were doing King of the Hill again, coupled with the realization that I was going to have to go up against the kid who was over three hundred pounds. There were days were I loved doing some drills and hated others. There were days when the field itself made me angry, like the times I was crushed against it while hoping for relief from physical exhaustion only for it to kick up dust into my face or mouth. There certainly were days when my sweat dripped into the carpet of barely leftover grass, and times when blood joined. But, in the end it was all worth it. How do I know that? For the past two summers I have returned to that field in Barco to help coach the next generation of Knights. There may have been days as a player where I did not want to be there, but as a youthful coach, there are zero days where I wish I were somewhere else. Standing in front of a group of kids varying from fourteen to eighteen and teaching them the finer points of a wide receiver stance makes me realize that so much joy in my life would instantly vanish if there was no practice field, or if I had never interacted with it during my own high school days. Chatting with my fellow coaches, hearing complaints about the toughness of the summer work for English class, or sensing a togetherness because this is the year that we finally are going to be beat Manteo in the opening game (for what it is worth, the current streak is Manteo 15, Currituck 1, starting with the 2001 season), it all happens because of the field in Barco. Many older generations have the barbershop; many Southern towns have the Courthouse. But, for me, my special place, my gathering place, is a ratty practice field behind the high school that serves as the practice venue for the Currituck County Knights. In the television show Friday Night Lights the saying used was “Texas Forever”. Well, I say, “Currituck Forever”, all thanks to a field in Barco.