Take a left at the pig, and you end up at … Truett-McConnell
College?
There is a connection to these dots, and that is Westfield
student-athlete Wade Forrester. One of four brothers, including a
nowhere-near-identical twin, Wade has chosen to play college soccer at
Truett-McConnell, an NAIA and Southern States Conference school in the
northeast Georgia town of Cleveland.
Wade has only recently removed the sling off one of his
shoulders for an injury kept him off the basketball court for more than a
month. He was one of Jake Walls’ starting forwards, and one of his teammates is
the youngest of the Forrester clan, sophomore Cam.
The fraternal twin brother is Ty, a 250-pound lineman for
the Hornet football team and heavyweight for Westfield’s state champion
wrestling team. Cam, by the way, joined Ty on the football team as a running
back.
“I’m nine minutes older than (Ty),” said Wade. Maybe, being
smaller, he was able to slip out first. Really, though, Wade doesn’t know how
Ty ended up with all the size, but says he’s attempting to catch up.
“Ty is a great football player,” said Wade. “I probably beat
him in speed, but he’s got me in strength. Cam is the most athletic.”
Still being much less than 250, his specialty on the soccer
field is goalkeeper. He started playing at age 8, and at that time his father
Dave put him in position to protect the net. Wade stuck with that role ever
since.
“I don’t have a lot of skill, I haven’t been trained too
much, but I have a lot of talent,” said Wade, who joined the Westfield soccer
program as a seventh grader. He also played for a Central Georgia Soccer
Association select team last fall.
“In the year 2011 (the Hornets) were region champions,” said
Wade about his top accomplishment. “I was 7-for-12 on PKs.”
Translated, that means he stopped seven out of 12 penalty
kicks faced.
“You have to guess, because it’s shot from about 10 feet
away,” said Wade. In terms of shootouts, he guesses he’s been involved in
either five or six. One, however, stands out, and that was the region
championship match against Deerfield-Windsor.
Wade learned about the Truett-McConnell soccer program from
a friend, Blake Manning. He said the place felt like “home” when he paid a
visit. College soccer plays in the fall, and last season the Bears had a 4-10-2
record.
Another draw for Wade to this school is the music program.
He is a piano player, drummer, and he taught himself how to play guitar upside-down, since he is left-handed. The brothers Forrester, including the
eldest, Drew, also a Westfield alumnus, formed a band called Left at the Pig.
“Currently I am in a band with friends from school,” said
Wade. “We’re called the Dusty Armadillos.”
He did say Left at the Pig?
“When you go out to our house, we put a pig out at the four-way
(stop),” he said. “You have to take a left at the pig to get to our house.”
In Left at the Pig, Wade handles the drums and sings, Ty is
the lead guitarist, Drew plays rhythm guitar and Cam plays bass. They play
anything from classic rock and roll, country and Christian music.
“My favorite song we do is
‘International Harvester’ by Craig Morgan,” he said. “I have written some
songs, but I’m still working on them.”
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