Over the span of 26 years at The Vicksburg Post I’ve written a lot of feature stories. One of my favorites was about the way high school soccer fans endure and cope with freezing temperatures during games in December, January and February.

It was a fun dive into a strange culture where people experimented with all sorts of warming methods — propane heaters, blankets, sleeping bags and more.

That story popped to mind this week, when the first extended cold spell of the winter coincided with a couple of home soccer games for Vicksburg High and Warren Central. It’s always interesting to see the lengths people will go to in order to preserve their fingers and toes.

This winter, heated coats and vests are all the rage. They have wires sewn into the lining, and an inner pocket with a USB connector that you plug a portable charger into. There are buttons on the breast pocket that control the temperature.
Depending on how good your charger is, it’ll keep your torso and neck warm for several hours.

I saw soccer coaches Maurice Gilliam of Vicksburg and Jeremy Lawrence of Warren Central sporting them back in December and mentioned their recommendations to my wife. She bought me one for Christmas. She was fired up to finally send me out to field test the coat — much more than I was to stand outside in 30-degree weather to do it.

Thankfully, the coat passed the test.

She also got me some heated gloves and shoe insoles that I did not bring to the game since they’re a little cumbersome. Throw in some heated pants and I could be both warm and bathed in an electromagnetic field capable of interfering with radio signals.

At halftime, I also stole a couple of minutes in front of Warren Central’s bench. They had a wind shelter and several propane heaters that made it feel like 70 degrees for at least a 10-foot radius. As long as you didn’t move from that spot, it was roasty toasty warm.

Sadly, the players returned from their halftime strategy session and I had to give up the seat.

At some point, I looked at the stands and was surprised by what I saw. First, there were actually people who braved the weather to attend. That ought to earn some major points in the Parent of the Year contest.

Second, there was not a propane heater in sight. No orange glow or waves of gas shimmering from the massive orange heating disc. No smiles from the act of defeating Mother Nature for a while.

Most of the people looked cold and miserable, staring into space and counting every second as they slowly ticked off the clock.

I’m sure they wanted Warren Central’s girls team to rally from a 1-0 deficit in the second half. I’ll also guess they weren’t saddened when it ended at that score instead of going to an overtime period that would’ve lasted another 30 or 40 icy minutes.

The sight made me wonder if some institutional knowledge had been lost over the past decade or so. If hard-earned lessons were no longer passed down from one generation to the next. If our sense of American ingenuity had been lost.

Or if they, too, had discovered the wonders of the fashionable heated coat.

I sure hope it was the latter.

•

Ernest Bowker is the sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com