My Almost Football Career

During my Junior and Senior years of High School I was part of the Powder Puff football team.  If you aren’t sure what this is, it was an annual flag football game played between the Junior and Senior High School girls and it was always held during Homecoming week.  It was a big deal every year and pretty much everyone in the school came out to watch.  My senior year we were losing miserably to the Junior girls (a little embarrassing for us upper classman).  We only had a few seconds left in the game.  At the last moment our High School’s real quarterback Travis (who was also our coach) decides to throw the ball down the field to see if we can make a last second score.  It went something like this:

I see the ball coming my way.  It’s floating up in the air, the football lights in the stadium are on, and it’s headed straight my way.  I know I can catch it – even though it won’t count as real points (since the real quarterback is throwing the ball).  It will still be exciting to catch it! 

In those few seconds I envisioned myself catching the ball, running down the field to score, the crowd going wild, and me being carried off the field on the shoulders of my teammates.  What actually happened?  I held out my arms to catch the ball, and it hit me square in the forehead, bounced off my head, landed on the ground in front of me and the game was over.  Needless to say I was absolutely humiliated.  Instead of cheers, there were laughs, and people pointing and saying – “ouch”, or “did you see that?”  I seriously considered quitting school at that moment.  I just knew I would never live it down.  The next day would be the worst day of my life.  I literally couldn’t sleep that night.  I still remember that moment so vividly….but if you were to ask one of my classmates would they actually remember – maybe a few, but most would not.  But this is just one example of my stellar athletic career.

In elementary and middle school I played softball, but I was always one of the worst players on the team – always in the outfield and always batting last.  In high school and college I played tennis, but again, I was always one of the last seeded players.  In road races and triathlons I am always in the bottom 25% of my age group.  And when I race in Oklahoma City on Sunday it will be no different, but I am ok with that, because I’m out there.  In high school, I might have been embarrassed by missing the football, but I was out there.  I’m sure there were a lot of my female classmates that were watching the game from the bleachers because they were too afraid to get out there and try, or because they just didn’t have enough confidence to think they could do it, or they didn’t want to put a little time into practicing. 

And when it comes to racing, even though I'm a "slow" runner and triathlete, I still know that I'm also in the minority.  I am the only person in my department at work who has ever completed a half marathon or a triathlon.  I am one of only a few people in my neighborhood, my County, my State, that have done these things.  It’s really cool to know that although I’ll never win my age group, or take home an age group award, that I’m still out there “Slowly Tri-ing” no matter what!