Go for the gold, cornholers!

I heard recently that breakdancing will be introduced as a medal sport in this summer's Paris Olympics. B-boys and b-girls will be on the podium, ducking their heads to get the medal draped around their neck, tearing up when their national anthem is played.

To make way for breakdancing, softball has been dumped. I don't quite get it. Sure, breakdancing requires athleticism, but softball is actually - wait for it! - a sport. Maybe the Olympics wants more events where who gets the medal is subjectively decided by human rather than objectively decided by things like, say, who scores more runs.

But, hey, where would the Olympics be if it werent't for all sorts of sports you only hear about every four years? And better yet if the sports are subjectively evaluated. The Sovie bloc may no longer vote together, but remember the good old days when judges from Communist countries (and, admttedly, other countries as well) could hold up the 10 card for their favorites, whether performance merited it or not? Can't wait to see the breakdancing judging!

While there will be breakdancing, there will not be any medals for cornhole. Yet. An international league is in the making and they will, of course, want to get cornhole on the medal stand. 

And why not? After all, cornhole is becoming a college sport and there are even cornhole scholarships to be had. At least at South Carolina's Winthrop University, which is offering a half-price education to Gavin Hamann and Jason Remmick, a couple of high school seniors, classmates in Colorado and members of the team that won the national h.s. championship. 

Hamann and Remmick didn't set out to be cornholers. Hamann was a soccer guy; Remmick played baseball. And before they started participating in (and winning) tournaments - and on their way to becoming two of the top high school cornhole players in the country - the pair weren't actually thinking of cornhole as a sport. After all:

Hamann and Remmick’s hobby wasn’t quite earning coolness “I was super embarrassed about it,” Remmick said about playing cornhole. “It’s just weird to tell people like, ‘Yeah, I got a cornhole tournament tonight.’” (Source: Washington Post)

Cornhole. Not exactly lax bro chill. Not exactly quarterback-gets-the-prettiest-cheerleader territory. More in line with party events like beer pong. (And while I think of it, didn't we used to call this beanbag toss? Where did cornhole come from???)

Anyway, Hamann and Remmick:

...were surprised when Winthrop University, hoping to be a trailblazer for college cornhole, offered them athletic scholarships a few months ago that will cover about half of their tuition fees. 

Now the duo "hope to be the faces of a growing sport."

South Carolina is becoming something of a cornhole hotbed. The headquarters of the American Cornhole League is just a few beanbag cornhole tosses from the Winthrop campus. The school's AD, Chuck Rey, felt that going deep into cornhole presented the univeristy with a good opportunity to gain some fame. (If nothing else, offering those scholarships got them an article in the Washington Post.)

“I’ve always believed here at Winthrop that we can win national championships,” Rey said. “And this is another area that I believe we can be nationally competitive.”

Although not an approved NCAA sport - no one will be making $1M for the NIL rights to the names and images of Hamann  and Remmick -   cornhole is taking off. Tthere are even professional cornhole players. They don't make all that much - the stars can make about $60K - but who knows what can happen?

I'm not sure whether Hamann and Remnick have accepted the offer from Winthrop. They'd have to be really serious to up-stakes and head from Colorado to an obscure South Carolina on the promise of the first year half off. 

But maybe they're thinking big - or at least 'what the hell/why not?'

Perhaps the athletes playing cornhole at the college level will someday be Olympians. Move over, Michael Phelps.

It may take a while. You need the sport to be played in 17 countries. While cornhole has made some inroads in Europe, it's mostly a North American phenomenon. 

But if breakdancing can make it onto the Olympics roster, why shouldn't cornhole?

Go for the gold, cornholers! Go for the gold!