IA: HAWKEYE BB PLAYER DOUBLES AS PIG FARMER
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IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCCI) — Jaidyn Coon comes to Iowa as a four-star recruit. After a decorated career at Storm Lake High School, he has big goals for his freshman year.
“I have the mentality that I just want to dunk on somebody, no matter how big,” Coon said.
The best part? He’s not afraid to do the dirty work.
“I grew up in a small town, 8,000 people,” he said. “I worked eight to nine hours a day on a pig farm.”
That’s right, a pig farm.
Teammate Tate Sage did a double take.
“I repeated myself,” he said. “I was like, ‘You grew up on a pig farm?'”
“My grandpa raises over a million hogs for the state of Iowa; it’s called Nutra Tech,” Coon said.
Coon has spent a lot of time on the farm. “A lot of maintenance work,” he said. “It’s 100 degrees out, I tear curtains down, powerwash, it’s a lot. It’s hard work. You’re drained. You take a shower, go to bed at 8 and wake up at 6, then just sleep.”
While his blue-collar upbringing will always be part of him, he’s happy to be sporting black and gold this summer.
“Summer workouts are definitely harder, but I actually enjoy it,” he said. “Pig farming — it’s good, but it gets kind of tiring after a while.”
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