Flashback Friday is when I tell you an emotional, entertaining, and most likely embarrassing anecdote form my childhood. Thrilling no?
And because I seem to have a one track mind, and because I just watched Nederlands come from behind to beat Brazil in a 2-1 victory, this first anecdote is going to be about…soccer!
I’ve been thinking about this one a lot lately. So I figured a Friday was the perfect time to publish it!My sister is a big soccer player. From the time she was four up to her high school’s varsity team. My brother started the same year as Nina, at age 6, and played through middle school. When they started (at age four and six) my parents and I decided that that year was the perfect year for me to play on an intramural team as well! I know! What a great idea!
Ok let me explain something first of all…as cliché as this may sound…I am a dancer. I don’t do “athleticism.” I had somehow managed to fake my way through three years of YMCA indoor soccer having sucked the entire time. And here I was thinking that a real soccer league was in order?
So first day of practice, my team, the “Pink Panthers” decide to do some drills. Do I know these drills? NO! I HAVE NEVER PLAYED! And yet every other girl on the team had been playing since their birth certificate allowed them to. Then flash forward to our first game…fifteen minutes to the final whistle and I’m put in!!! Hooray! The ball goes out of bounds and I get to throw it in! Another hooray! I pick it up and throw with all my might, but the whistle is blown! Later, the ball goes out again. I pick it up and throw again…another whistle. Next time it goes out, another girl comes over, takes it from me, and throws it in. I found out later it was because I lifted my back leg. Clearly a simple rule to follow…but NOT WHEN YOU DON”T KNOW OF IT’S EXISTENCE! Seriously…would it have been so hard for the coach, referee, or one of my teammates to say “hey don’t lift your leg?” Ok so we continued our season and we were on fire. We were undefeated and the coach was proud. He was also running the team like there was some sort of prize to be won for having a undefeated 11-year-old girls’ soccer team. We did conditioning, scrimmaged against the class-1 boys team, and had recaps of previous games. Suffice to say, I was playing maybe fifteen minutes of each game. And not having any fun.
The local paper published results and “star players” from each game. The majority of coaches wrote whoever had scored a goal then just went down the roster every week giving everyone a chance to be in it…but I never was.
Then that fateful practice. During drills (I had finally figured them out by them) I stepped into a pot hole and fell. I had a limp for the next two days until my father took me to the hospital. I was told I had a re-injured torn-ligament injury, but I’m fairly sure it was 90% psychological. In fact the doctor probably took my dad aside, told him there was nothing wrong with me, and my dad said “Eh, put her out of her misery and slap a cast on that thing.” I don’t know…I’d kinda like to think that’s how it went down.
We finished the rest of the season with an unblemished record. I got to play one game after getting my cast off. By that time the concept of passing had been so drilled into my head that I got so close ot the goal with no goalie in site and instead went for the assist. I don’t even remember if we actually got that goal. I just know I didn’t.
I don’t know if things would have been different if I started with the “Ladybugs” or “Raptors” like my sister and brother did. The teams were twelve girlsboyss running towards a ball in a group and kicking to their hearts content. But you know what? I don’t mind. I had fun supporting my siblings through there sporting adventures. Sure they could kick my butt at a little one on one, but I’d like to see either of them do a double turn, arabesque, turn, and land (little Chorus Line for y’all.) So I don’t regret it at all. And that s the end of that flashback.
So what about you? Any sporty skeletons in the closet with the leftover shin guards and deflated basketball?
Word of the day: buitenspel - offside
Aw, that sucks about the cast but at least you got to play in one game!
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