Students Make History With Scholarships in … Cornhole

Two high school students in Colorado have turned throwing beanbags at boards into tickets for college. Gavin Hamann and Jaxson Remmick, 17-year-old seniors at ThunderRidge High School in Highlands Ranch, have become the first students to receive athletic scholarships for cornhole, NPR reports. The scholarships for the pair, who are considered among the best high school cornhole players in the country, will cover around half their tuition at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where they’ll be Division I players. “I’m shocked, I mean, as everybody is,” Hamann tells 9News. “It’s crazy. It’s groundbreaking.”

WInthrop’s campus is just a mile north of the American Cornhole League’s headquarters, and the university aims to be a “trailblazer for college cornhole” as the game explodes in popularity, the Washington Post reports. “This is not just cornhole anymore,” says coach Dusty Thompson, per 9News. “This is something that is now going to give kids an opportunity to get scholarships, potential full rides eventually.” Hamann and Remmick are two-time winners of the ACL’s high school championship. At Winthrop, they’ll be allowed to continue competing in ACL events and keep the prize money.

Hamann and Remmick started playing the game around two and a half years ago, joining their parents’ weekly bar tournaments, the Washington Post reports. At the time, Hamann was focused on soccer and Remmick hoped to play college baseball. “I was super embarrassed about it,” Remmick says of cornhole. “It’s just weird to tell people like, ‘Yeah, I got a cornhole tournament tonight.’” They later started taking part in tournaments around the country. They say they’re excited about their roles in a growing sport. “We get to kind of pave the pathway for this new thing to come,” Hamann tells the Post. (More cornhole stories.)