Normally when the folks of Heber City fill the stands of a school gymnasium to watch asses play basketball, it means one of the school’s rivals is in town. On Thursday evening, it meant something different. 

In a fundraising event to sponsor scholarships for members of the school district’s Future Farmers of America members, Rocky Mountain Middle School’s gym was filled with donkeys topped with students and teachers who were ready for the challenge of shooting hoops from the back of an animal infamous for living to the beat of its own drum. 

The event — organized by Wasatch County School District’s FFA members in conjunction with their peers in the Future Business Leaders of America — started at 6 p.m., when the donkeys first entered the middle school’s gymnasium to the glee, delight, excitement and shock of the onlookers in the mostly filled stands and still-filling stands.

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Attendees continued to look on in amazement and scrunch their noses at the various agriculture smells when — as if to prove its authenticity as an actual animal — one of the donkeys came near the bleachers to stop off for a quick number two, which was subsequently scooped away. Out of sight, out of mind, so long as one didn’t have a sense of smell.

Still, it was all in good fun, and it was all for a good cause.

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There were three games in all, each with two halves ranging from 6-8 minutes and with a different set of riders for each half. First the FFA students rode against their FBLA cohorts. Then, core subject teachers faced elective instructors. The final round featured the winners of the first two, with the top two teams entering into a March Madness-like final showdown of an equine variety.

Kody Clyde, an Agricultural Science teacher at Wasatch High School, explained how the FFA is an important component in the district’s agricultural program.

“Everybody who’s in an FFA class is an FFA member,” he said. “FFA is an organization that takes learning outside of the classroom and applies it in real life.”

This component of the program manifests itself in a variety of projects that can range from raising animals to growing crops to building agricultural equipment.

The association, Clyde said, helps kids develop leadership skills.

“We’ll see kids who are afraid to stand up in front of people,” he explained. “By the end of their four years, they’re leading discussions.”

FBLA State Advisor Duke Di Stefano — who is also an assistant principal at Rocky Mountain Middle School — described the business leaders group in a similar manner, emphasizing how it gives experiences that promote strong leadership skills within its members. 

One opportunity both FFA and FBLA students had Thursday evening was to prove the other group inferior in the first match of the donkey-straddled basketball, a task that proved difficult at every step of the game. 

Players could get off their asses to retrieve a stray ball, though they needed to keep hold of the reins. In order to shoot or pass the ball, they needed to be atop the animals. For some riders on the vertically smaller side, this proved tricky as soon as the game started because the thin saddles meant to separate them from their animal counterparts had no stirrups nor horns with which they could hoist themselves up. It was, however, quickly proven that anyone with the guts to ride in a rampage of donkeys and glory to get balls through hoops had what it took to first get on a donkey.

Wasatch High Principal Justin Kelly sat at the announcer’s bench, providing narration and playful peanut-gallery commentary alike throughout the game.

“Come on, let’s get it!” he called out a few minutes, several switchovers and more than a couple air balls into the game. “Someone’s got to score!”

FBLA students eventually heeded his call to action and ended the first half 4-0. 

The team’s second-half riders couldn’t keep the momentum, however, and the FBLA fell to the FFA in a sudden-death overtime.

The second game followed a similar pace to the first, with donkeys not being the most willing animals to move and not the fastest, even if they are given sufficient motivation to do so. That, however, did little to cool the tension between the two groups of teachers — one with subjects that kids had to take, and one they chose to take. 

Ultimately, the core teachers took the game, in no small part due to physics and engineering teacher Jonathon Welling, who somehow managed to kneel on his donkey on his approaches to the basket, lending to his accuracy, which proved deadly to the elective teachers’ chances of a spot in the finals — even if it did cost him a few bumps and bruises when he spilled over the side of the animal.

During the small tournament’s halftime, or two-thirds time to be more accurate, Heber City’s Utah Arts Collective dancers took to the center of the gym to perform a number for the spectators and — in what can only be described as a daring move — put their faces unfathomably close to where the donkeys and all of their associated scents had trod only moments before.

Then it was time for the finale, and the FFA students once again took up their donkeys to face the challenging foes.

The two teams were about as stubborn as their donkeys, each not letting the other get too far ahead before evening the score.

In the last seconds, the teachers made a final shot, schooling the FFA kids the same way they school them in primary subjects.

“That’s the game! That is the game. Our teachers pulled it off in sudden victory,” Kelly announced. “Let’s hear it for our donkeys. They’re tired.”

Kash Cummings — a rider for the effortful, yet ultimately unsuccessful FFA team — talked to The Park Record about his experiences in the program, what he’s learned and how he’s hoping to be a state FFA officer next year after he graduates.

“I grew up on a farm. My dad actually had a dairy farm his whole life, so we’re still on that farm, kind of a family generation thing,” he said. “FFA means a lot to me just because it’s the future of agriculture throughout the world.”

Without agricultural fields, he continued, there wouldn’t be food. 

Throughout his time in FFA, he said he’s learned the importance of being a helpful hand to those in need and prioritizing friendship.

“This is a cool event where we have a lot of people coming to support our students, but this is just one thing that happens throughout the year,” Kelly said. “This is all student-led, and that’s what I think is important.”