Soccer?

Ok, I freely admit this idea came from the childhood memory of someone else's blog that I read.

It has been pointed out to me several times since childhood that I'm weird because I'm not really into sports. People are borderline offended by it.

No, I'm not about to rip those people a new one. However...

When I was a little kid, little league sports were very much there as they are today. With only one major difference...today, the Mighty Ducks attitude is a little more commonplace on sports teams.

In my day, the Bad News Bears mentality was alive and well. Kids were more openly cruel about their competitiveness.

First off, I wasn't raised to like sports. I don't know if my DNA is simply lacking the sports genome, but it's one of the few things I don't mind admitting I have in common with my father. Sports games were rarely on our television, even before we had cable or satellite, even when it was THE thing to watch. That's probably why I spent half my childhood building model trains and cars in my bedroom until I discovered music.

Anyway...as a disclaimer, I did enjoy a baseball game anytime I was taken. Mom's doing. But I enjoyed the environment in old Arlington stadium more than the game itself.

My physical reaction times when playing sports were never good, but I encountered the Bad News Bears attitude just as early as 1st grade. I had a gym class just like everyone else. I hated it. Why? Because people played to win, viciously. Everything we did in there was a pissing contest to the power of Merlin, and if you were the one that cost them a score point, they would be up, in your face, threatening to mob-kick your ass. The few times I enjoyed things were the instances when we did archery or something along those lines.

In school, the coach used to play this cruel little game where he'd call out names and divide the class in half, but he always left me for last. He'd look at me and say "Take your pick." Thirty people, divided into groups of 15 would stare at me like "Don't you DARE!", and then I'd have to do some insipid eeny-meeny-miney-moe, in the hopes that their inane little minds would grasp that even I wanted to leave it up to chance; I didnt want to be on a team that didn't want me.

Random fate chose me for one side of the other, then I'd get the groans and moans from the team that I walked towards. My lack of confidence no doubt was spurred on even further by people like that.

When I was 10, my cousin was on a soccer team. We went to his games because his father -- my Dad's brother -- coached the team, very opposite man to my dad...charismatic, sports fan, good at coralling the kids. I became so enticed by the fact that my cousin's team was winning that year and going to the championships.

He was in the '8 year olds' team. My next door neighbor (who was my age) and I joined the '10 year olds team' the next year. Somehow my friend next door had gotten it into his head that he was going to have a trophy on his shelf. Delusions of grandeur, you see. So I got that idea too.

We were the worst team in the league. Not because of me, just because we were, collectively. But I was still beheld as the worst player, of course, who happened to be IN the worst team in the league. I played the position of full back, protection of the goalie. We lost every game but one, and in that game, I sat on the bench. Made me feel really good. Dad's brother didn't coach our team, either, some half-drunk jerk-off asshole friend of Dad's brother coached the 10-year-olds.

I couldn't help it sometimes, as a full back you had a lot of downtime...waiting for the game to come to that side of the field was boring. My attention span would wander off, next thing I knew, people were in my face with the ball and I'd have to refocus.

And of course, the kids on that team were just as cruel as the kids in the school gym. Once I tried at a team meeting (with parents present) to say jokingly that we could be "Good at being the losing team", and I swear I thought I was going to be murdered at that moment. I told my parents I wanted out, of course they would have none of it, since they paid for the season. I don't understand it, it was a mistake, I wanted to be gone, and they [the team] wanted me to be gone, my Dad didn't want to take me to games I didn't want to play, it would have been a clear cut case of mutual consent. But Dad was determined to make me miserable...perhaps he had a masochistic streak that enjoyed watching me lose...anyway...the season finally ended and I was free. It goes without saying I never did that again.

Well, that's my experience in sports. I think I hated it because it is just human nature that people are just too cruel to each other when they start playing it. I still do sheepishly admit that I enjoy a good baseball game if I'm physically there, and at my age, I enjoy the game more than the atmosphere, but such outages are very few and far between (maybe once every few years).

So now you know, why I don't have a flavor for sports. Except the Bad News Bears. They rock. :P

Tanner: "Hey Yankees! You can take your apology, and your trophy and SHOVE IT STRAIGHT UP YOUR ASS!"

Amen.