Pixel 3 dirt rally images4/18/2023 He ran away up those same sand hills as a kid, trying to escape Hildale. They’ve been stained a dusty red from running up the sand hills on the edge of this town, dodging sagebrush as part of his conditioning. “Yes, coach.”īarlow was one of the last players out, taking his time to lace up his once-white cleats. Just do the things we taught you how to do.” “You know exactly what you need to do tonight,” echoed Coach Heber Horsley in a pep talk in the classroom before their first game last month. “We know what we need to do to uplift our community,” said Barlow. To many folks here, Water Canyon High School and the football team have now become a symbol of the way forward. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Basketball hoops are blocked off by large bales of cardboard as Warren Jeffs forbade his followers from playing sports, as seen in Colorado City, Ariz. While pockets of believers remain, over time the town has become more secular - less the image of prairie dresses and “Zion” loyalty signs hung above doorframes than it once was. The exodus has continued to today at least two of the football players’ families left the faith this year, the team’s coach said. After Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides, more withdrew. And we couldn’t.”ĭissenters were kicked out, but some also began to leave the church, fearing it was becoming extremist. “We were kids,” said Lester Barlow, now a senior and team captain, who plays outside linebacker. In the early 2000s that leader was Warren Jeffs, who made a strict faith stricter by explicitly outlawing sports, along with children’s toys, television, music other than approved hymns, the internet and public education. Members came down here to practice plural marriage off the grid, in a remote place where the closest neighbor was the Grand Canyon and they could freely follow edicts from their prophet. Some of the players remember their families being part of the FLDS faith - which splintered in the early 1900s from the mainstream LDS Church after it banned polygamy. Together, the area is called “Short Creek,” and they grew up here when it was still ruled by religion. Most of the boys on this team were born in Hildale or the twin town of Colorado City across the state line in Arizona. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Water Canyon High School football players suit up and hydrate in a biology classroom before their first game in Hildale on Friday, Aug. The nearest kid tapped on his helmet, testing the strength for reassurance. “It looked like that guy’s eyes were gonna pop out of his skull.” “Dude, did you see that hit?” one of the players asked. A video compilation of rodeo cowboys getting slammed by bulls played from a projector onto the whiteboard with most of the team having never played football, it was the closest thing they could think of to get in the mindset of being tackled. It was the inaugural Friday night lights for the town that was once a stronghold of the polygamous Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints and run by its leaders.Īs they geared up, a couple of players said quiet pregame prayers below posters detailing the forest ecosystem. Now they were preparing to go out onto the new sod field under the redrock buttes for the first time, playing where no one had before. Others seemed more nervous that it might actually happen.Īll sports were banned in this secluded desert community in southern Utah, until just a few years ago. If they puke during their first-ever football game, one boy jokes, at least they’ll know where in the stomach it came from, right? Some of his teammates laughed. They don’t have a locker room so the players get ready in a biology classroom, helping each other stretch their jerseys over pads as bottles of Pedialyte and rolls of athletic tape share a table with dioramas of intestines.
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