#i2amru (I, Too, Am Reinhardt) Volume 1 Number 1 | Page 44

Journey

Matthews got in touch with Hinds
and asked him if he had any interest in going to college in the States.
After working out the logistics with
the school, Hinds was offered a full
ride with Shorter University.

From Down
Under

Luckily, Hinds’s mother was here in
Canton visiting Jarrad from Australia and so I got to interview her.
She told me, “When he told me that
he wanted to go to university in the
United States, I told him he was
dreaming, but he was persistent.
I really didn’t pay any attention to
the idea of it until he showed me
a packet that the school had sent
him. I just remember looking over
it, and then looking at him and saying, ’You’re really doing this, huh?’”

By: Grant
Sufferling
(Photos courtesy Jarrad Hinds)

“It’s not about the destination, it’s about the
journey,” says Jarrad Hinds of Adelaide, Australia. Coming halfway across the world with
a lacrosse stick in his hand, Hinds has been
able to experience more in his 24 years than
most do in a
lifetime.

From this point on, Hinds had the
pedal to the metal. He not only
picked up lacrosse quickly, but he
shot to the top of the ranks. At fifteen years old, he was asked to play
for a team that represented all of
South Australia. At the age of nineteen, he was asked again to play for
another Australian representative
team that went to play against other
Asia-Pacific teams in New Zealand.
At twenty-one, Hinds was asked to
play for team Australia and travel to
South Korea to play in the Asia-Pacific Championship.

What most people don’t know about Hinds is
that he is a twin. Jarrad and his sister Kaitlin
were born on April 30th, 1990, in Adelaide,
South Australia. Raised by their parents,
Christopher and Jill, the twins carried on
their early years like any normal family. Like
anyone, they had their own struggles.
“When I was in elementary school, I fell
through all the cracks. I was bullied and
picked on. I didn’t actually learn to read until
the 5th grade,” remembered Hinds.
After sharing his unhappiness with
his parents, Jill and Christopher decided to
move Hinds to private school for middle and
high. After the start of his ninth grade year,
Hinds’s father told him that he was not allowed to play rugby anymore because he was
too small and bound to get hurt.

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While walking home from school one day, Hinds stumbled upon a
lacrosse practice and was instantly intrigued.
“I dragged my dad down to the field the next day to watch them
practice,” he recalls. “But instead, there was a tournament going on. From that point on, both my dad and I were hooked. He
signed me up to play the next day.”

But it was not necessarily smooth
sailing. “As we were getting off the
plane in South Korea, there were
military guards taking people’s temperatures with a laser gun. One of
the guys on my team was running a
slight fever, and the guards put our
whole team into a holding cell,” he
recalled.

“From here, we were put into
quarantine, Hinds continued. “Each
person, including the parents that
were with us, was put into individual rooms. This was right around the
time that the swine flu scare was in
full effect, and South Korea wasn’t
taking any chances. It was insane.
We were there for seven days, but it
felt more like seven years.”
Upon returning to Adelaide, Hinds
started an apprenticeship as an
electrician, but he soon had other
plans. Hinds played on a team in
Adelaide that frequently invited
Americans to come and play with
them for a season. One of the guys,
Mike Matthews, had come over w