by Katy Beem
It’s a scene that plays outside most South Dakota high schools every fall: as the late afternoon sun turns autumnal gold over the grass and turf of practice fields, coaches whistle and shout to football and soccer players running drills and practice games. At one such Friday practice in Garretson earlier this fall, head football coach Chris Long and his players were in a bit of a pickle. With only a week before their first game, the Blue Dragons were on the turf working their Points After Touchdown, or PAT. They needed to make some decisions about their kicker. “We’d had some guys kick in practice a little bit, and they looked like they could maybe do it, but we knew we had to make some changes because one of our kickers was our holder and another was our possible snapper,” says Long. “So, we went to PAT and we failed miserably. We just couldn’t get the ball through.” Meanwhile, on the grass field nearby, head girls soccer coach Amber Williamson and her team were practicing when the time had come for the two teams to switch fields. “Coach Long, as we’re passing between the two sports, says, ‘Hey, we’re struggling to find a consistent kicker,” says Williamson. “‘Do you have anyone on the soccer team who could kick a field goal?’ And I said, ‘Well, we’ve got quite a few who could try for you. That’s what we do!’” Long had seen the soccer
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