Football Epiphany
29 August 2006 09:49![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skonen_bladesI’m under a lot of weight. I made it on to the football team. I passed the tryouts and I’ve shown up to all the practices. We’re three quarters of the way through the game against the Baltimore Ravens, our bitter rivals. Right now I’m curled up with one leg sticking out and I’m holding the ball. There are fifteen men on top of me in a dog pile. The score is 25 to 42 for them.
Being at the bottom of half a ton of growling male flesh in a barbaric territorial display of both local nationalism and competitive alpha male behaviour is probably a strange place to have an epiphany.
There are a few reasons that I’m here tasting grass, smelling the sweat of fifteen men and having trouble breathing. Time is stretching out and I’m starting to see spots. I’m sure I’ll be okay but it’s starting to get surreal.
One of the reasons that I’m here is my father. He was an athlete in his youth and he’s been a little ashamed of my lack of hot girlfriends and sports trophies over the years. I’ve had a few women that I cared about but conversation and sexual talent has always been way more of a consideration for me than actual looks or popularity. I figured he’d be proud of a son that got straight As but I could see the disappointment in his eyes. He never said anything but for his whole life he’d been looking forward to reliving his glory days through the life of his son.
He’s in the stands right now watching me. I feel nothing. He’s probably having the time of his life.
Another reason is, you guessed it, a girl. Nancy Taylor. A cheerleader with a very high grade average. A smart cheerleader. Sounds like an oxymoron but it’s for real. We met in AP Biology when we were partnered together for a week of labs. She doesn’t like the guys who play sports and their behaviour but the other girls were sort of pressuring her to go out with one of them so that the whole tier of predictable cliché clique behavioural physics could be maintained. They said they were going to make her lose her place on the squad if she didn’t comply. Illegal but what was she going to do, take them to court? This was high school.
So I tried out for the football team. I got accepted and dropped chess club and went part time with the yearbook.
Sometimes, you come to a crossroads. A place in your life that you never thought you’d ever go to. You look back at all the tiny decisions that brought you there. They all seemed like good ideas or at least acceptable compromises at the time.
Now I’m nearly passing out underneath a large amount of men and I’m apathetic. My heart has never been in the game. I make a decision before I pass out.
I wake up halfway back to the changing rooms on a stretcher. My ankle is sprained and the doctor thinks I may have cracked a rib. As I pass the cheerleaders on the sidelines, Nancy comes over to me with worried tears in her eyes but I pretend like I’m still disoriented as I’m wheeled into the boy’s changing room. For just a second, I could hear my dad joyously telling his pals that that was his boy down there.
His boy.
I don’t even have to tell the coach that I quit. He comes into the room and looks at me. I look at him and I shake my head. He nods and pats me on the shoulder. We understand each other. There’s a moment of deep male communication between us and he leaves.
I stay alone in the changing room for the rest of the game. I have a long shower and get dressed slowly. I’m going to have to tell Nancy and my dad after this that I’m out. I know my dad has at least some memories of my playing football now so he’ll be disappointed but able to deal. Nancy, I don’t know. Making out with her in her cheerleader’s outfit was pretty sensational and listening to her talk about particle physics always got me hot. Hopefully she’ll understand.
I can’t play if I don’t care.
tags
Being at the bottom of half a ton of growling male flesh in a barbaric territorial display of both local nationalism and competitive alpha male behaviour is probably a strange place to have an epiphany.
There are a few reasons that I’m here tasting grass, smelling the sweat of fifteen men and having trouble breathing. Time is stretching out and I’m starting to see spots. I’m sure I’ll be okay but it’s starting to get surreal.
One of the reasons that I’m here is my father. He was an athlete in his youth and he’s been a little ashamed of my lack of hot girlfriends and sports trophies over the years. I’ve had a few women that I cared about but conversation and sexual talent has always been way more of a consideration for me than actual looks or popularity. I figured he’d be proud of a son that got straight As but I could see the disappointment in his eyes. He never said anything but for his whole life he’d been looking forward to reliving his glory days through the life of his son.
He’s in the stands right now watching me. I feel nothing. He’s probably having the time of his life.
Another reason is, you guessed it, a girl. Nancy Taylor. A cheerleader with a very high grade average. A smart cheerleader. Sounds like an oxymoron but it’s for real. We met in AP Biology when we were partnered together for a week of labs. She doesn’t like the guys who play sports and their behaviour but the other girls were sort of pressuring her to go out with one of them so that the whole tier of predictable cliché clique behavioural physics could be maintained. They said they were going to make her lose her place on the squad if she didn’t comply. Illegal but what was she going to do, take them to court? This was high school.
So I tried out for the football team. I got accepted and dropped chess club and went part time with the yearbook.
Sometimes, you come to a crossroads. A place in your life that you never thought you’d ever go to. You look back at all the tiny decisions that brought you there. They all seemed like good ideas or at least acceptable compromises at the time.
Now I’m nearly passing out underneath a large amount of men and I’m apathetic. My heart has never been in the game. I make a decision before I pass out.
I wake up halfway back to the changing rooms on a stretcher. My ankle is sprained and the doctor thinks I may have cracked a rib. As I pass the cheerleaders on the sidelines, Nancy comes over to me with worried tears in her eyes but I pretend like I’m still disoriented as I’m wheeled into the boy’s changing room. For just a second, I could hear my dad joyously telling his pals that that was his boy down there.
His boy.
I don’t even have to tell the coach that I quit. He comes into the room and looks at me. I look at him and I shake my head. He nods and pats me on the shoulder. We understand each other. There’s a moment of deep male communication between us and he leaves.
I stay alone in the changing room for the rest of the game. I have a long shower and get dressed slowly. I’m going to have to tell Nancy and my dad after this that I’m out. I know my dad has at least some memories of my playing football now so he’ll be disappointed but able to deal. Nancy, I don’t know. Making out with her in her cheerleader’s outfit was pretty sensational and listening to her talk about particle physics always got me hot. Hopefully she’ll understand.
I can’t play if I don’t care.
tags
no subject
Date: 4 Sep 2006 03:44 (UTC)