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| Gray Stone Student Appears in National Magazine | |||||||||||||
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By Raegan Perry ROCKWELL,NC - Gray Stone Junior, Matt Slingerland, is known around school for being on the varsity basketball and baseball teams. This past week, he made his first appearance in Sports Illustrated magazine. It wasn’t for baseball and basketball, however. Matt “Sling”, (as most of his schoolmates and teammates call him) appeared in Sports Illustrated for a sport of a different nature. Lumberjacking. Matt won his second consecutive Junior National Lumberjack Championship for the ten to eighteen year-old age range. The competition was held on August 19th, 2007 in Booneville, New York. In the Slingerland family, lumberjacking is a tradition that the whole family is involved in. Matt began lumberjacking lessons when he was ten years old; his father, Mike Slingerland was his teacher. Mike Slingerland has appeared on ESPN for lumberjacking, yet Matt is the first in his family to be in Sports Illustrated. In a lumberjacking competition, there are three events. The ax throw, a two-person crosscut and an underhand chop. The underhand chop is where the lumberjack stands upon a piece of wood while chopping it. Slingerland claims that the underhand chop is his favorite because, “I’m the best at it.” It is apparent that Slingerland outshines the rest in the event because he set a new national under-eighteen record in the underhand chop: a time of 15.34 seconds. He participated in and won the two-person crosscut with his twin brother, Eric Slingerland. The two-person crosscut is Matt’s least favorite, simply because it is the most difficult of all, in his opinion because of the bulky size of the saw and the gigantic wood. In the ax throw, one must attempt to hit the center of a target with an ax. The result of the event depends on the placement of the ax. Slingerland won that event in the Booneville junior national championship. When asked how to prepare oneself for a lumberjacking competition, Slingerland said “You have to be mentally prepared and get an adequate amount of sleep.” Timber Sports require a lot of determination, strength and commitment. Of the seven days of the week, Slingerland makes sure that he practices at least four times. All of that practice most definitely paid off last month. Slingerland said that he “is very excited about being chosen to be in the Faces in the Crowd portion of Sports Illustrated.” He also said that he is a “beast” when it comes to lumberjacking. All three Slingerland boys will head to Indianapolis, IN next weekend. Matt Slingerland is looking forward to helping his father in his lumberjacking competition. Slingerland, being only sixteen, is in the running to compete again in the under-18 junior national lumberjack championship. |
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