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SPORTS: they're not just fun and games anymore. At least, not if you're a kid. In a year filled with Little League World Series scandals, gunslinging soccer parents, and more trips to the courtroom to resolve the ensuing mayhem than you could possibly imagine, we decided to collect some reminisces about our own generation's twisted sports stories. -cr+cd You break it you buy it The idea of batting practice is to improve your hand-eye coordination and warm you up for the game. The objective is definitely not to injure yourself. But, it happens to a select and highly skilled few. With less than thirty minutes before my baseball game, I managed to bunt the ball back into my face. The result of such an impressive act was a lip the size of a grape and a new nickname, Ducky (think The Land Before Time). But, no worries, I returned to play in the game. -jd January 14, 1994: Halfway into a seventh grade girls basketball game, I fell and broke a growth plate in my left wrist. I got a cast and was told to keep my wrist elevated as often as possible. Three days later, I was sleeping over at a friend's house, in a sleeping bag on the floor of her living room at 4:31 am, when a 6.8 earthquake hit our little portion of the North San Fernando Valley. I was pinned under her wall unit and thought the ceiling had collapsed on top of me. As it turned out, the house was intact, and I emerged without a scratch-all because I had surrounded myself with pillows to keep my damaged wrist elevated. Despite this twist of fate, I have not played on a school sports team since. -jc In my first years playing ice hockey, before I was old enough to give or receive concussions or broken wrists, the most terrifying thing that happened during games was getting the wind knocked out of me. I'd take a stick, puck, or elbow in the stomach and crumple to the ice, gasping for breath and fighting the urge to panic. I think it scared my watching parents more than it did me, but those were still a painful few strides over the bench, all the while trying to beckon a fresh defenseman onto the ice. -ch Heads. up? Kickball in fourth grade was comparatively relaxing. I got put to pasture in left field, where I alternated between contemplating the drying grass and wishing that PE was over. Forever. One bright day, someone kicked a high hard one out to where I was. I centered myself directly under the ball, knowing that this kind of catch was easy, waiting for it to bounce directly off of my upturned face and far off into my territory as the boy ran the bases. An irredeemable geek in hot pink elastic-waistband shorts, shame-faced and blinded by the sun. Ah, the joys of a physical education. That and square dancing. -dt I was a little tyke playing soccer, and I was afraid of the ball. While all the other kids were running en masse towards the ball, as little kids do, I typically hung back and stayed out of the way. My parents thought it would be more fun for me to be a part of the game. They bribed me with donuts (Come on, for a Krispy Kreme, pretty much anyone will do anything!) if I got to kick the ball and $20 if I made a goal. So I tried. I joined the crazy herd of kids and went for the ball. And the ball went for me and got me hard in the eye. I stayed out there though, and tried again to kick the ball, only to be slammed in the eye again. I got that donut for the effort though. -ln I was playing doubles in a premier tennis event. A huge crowd was watching. I was positioned just in front of the service line. My so-called friend returned our opponents' serve-barely. No mercy was shown. My opponent crushed an overhead into the ground just inches in front of me. I never had a chance. The ball bounced and struck directly into the one place that'll make a grown man cry. I froze, dropped, and then crawled to the bench. At least I didn't scream- grimace, yes, but no loud effeminate cries. I still haven't forgiven my friend. We don't play much together anymore. It's not that I'm frightened by the past; I think he's just worried about his future. -uf When I was nine, a Beowulf scholar told me I had a golden arm. Wherever he ran, however he ducked and dodged, I spiraled the football right to him. But in middle school, you play dodgeball a lot more than you play football. So my team could always count on me to throw the ball right into the hands of Ian or Patrick or Alex. And it didn't help that I was so fucking fat. -jg How did that happen? Goals are going to be scored. It's part of the game of soccer. But you are not supposed to score on yourself. Filling in for our injured goalie during an indoor soccer game I made a mockery of the skill of net minding. Attempting to clear the ball up field I gave it a mighty boot. But, to my dismay it drilled my defender in the back of the head, causing him to fall over and the ball to roll into the empty net. -jd If you have never raced on a cross-country ski team, then you may not be able to appreciate the sport's potential power and grace. There is no ski lift in this version of Nordic travel, and that's not because the terrain is flat. The best skiers plunge up hills like hellish furies, their poles driving into the snow and propelling them ahead, seemingly in defiance of gravity. I was not practiced enough to defy gravity. One afternoon, I planted my poles into the hillside and inelegantly hauled myself upwards, as usual; in this laborious process, I heard a pole snap. I threw it to the ground and continued frenziedly across the course, one-armed. I looked less like a skier than a manic koala bear on skis-wielding one ski pole. I found my discarded pole later on the side of the trail. Interestingly, there was nothing wrong with it. So it goes. -cx In tenth grade I was on the JV field hockey team. There was no third team: JV meant merely that you weren't good enough for Varsity. At our small school, it was really pretty difficult to not be good enough for Varsity. We compensated for our failures by eating a lot of candy before the games and by cornering the manager in the back of the bus on the way home to make him demonstrate correct handjob technique on our hockey sticks. On more than one occasion, the opposing team's goalie scored on us; once, those of us on the sidelines even got to watch their goalie come out of the goal and balance her stick on her head for upwards of five minutes. We all learned a lot that season, but none of it was about field hockey. -ig The funniest sports moment of my life happened during a sixth grade basketball game. My teammate was on the free throw line after getting fouled on a break away. I was the second guy away from the basket on the free throw. The thing about this free throw that differed from every other free throw I had ever lined up before was that I thought that he had made the basket and he was shooting the extra one. The foul shot went up and missed and the ball came towards me. I got the ball after jumping up and grabbing it with all of my might. I came down with it and thought: "Wow, I got it and not one is near me, I am going to score!" So I went back up with it and I put it in and started to celebrate, only then realizing that he had another free throw to shoot! I felt so stupid. Then the referee on the next shot made sure that I knew there was one shot left. What an ass! -td Papa don't preach There was a drizzle. The sidelines of the soccer field were rimmed with bright umbrellas and ponchoed parents. Under one of those umbrellas, stalking in his poncho, was my father. He was the assistant coach, yelling, pointing his finger in the air and then at the referee, mispronouncing every other word he uttered in defiance of the 25 years he'd spent in this country observing soccer in English. He was the assistant coach of my travel soccer team for five years, and I always had the haunting impression that we were like the two illegal aliens, swarthy and stocky. I made a point of pronouncing things correctly. This is the curse of the first-generation soccer player. My last year on the team, before I defected to the cross-country squad, my father was promoted at work and could no longer coach. And then I rather missed him. -cx At least he's not my dad, I remember thinking as our coach was thrown off the field. We were in the quarterfinals of a soccer tournament in Maine and we had just tied the score. Or so we thought. As we cheered, the other team's goalie found the ref and managed to convince him that in fact the goal had not been scored. I do not know how she did it, I will never know how she did it, but she got the ref to reverse his call and take away our goal. That was the last straw for our coach. I remember screaming, I remember swearing and storming on to the field. But most of all I remember our coach getting thrown out of the game. And then, our team losing. -cd And last but not least: anti-Semitism I played Little League with a guy named Brian Kelly, whose mom was the head of the PTA. Brian was two years older and used to hoist me up by my underpants routinely during the third and fourth inning if I was cracking wise, telling me, "You'd be a better baseball player if you weren't so Jewish." Thank God the games were only six innings long. When I was 11, I started pitching. Brian insisted on being the catcher. If I got behind in the count on somebody, Brian turned sympathetic. He came to the mound and say, "This guy thinks you're a dumb, unathletic Jew. Is he right? You tell me." "Brian," I said. "I'm worried you have serious psychological problems." -ac Chrissie DeMaso B'03 would like to thank T-Bitch and Spidy even though they have funny foldy-over left ears. |
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Hill Independent
last updated 11 22 02
If Brett Zarda weren't such an athlete, he'd have to play pen