Kickball

We are having a student-teacher kickball game at school today.

 

Of course, when I say “we”, I mean everyone else.

 

I won’t play.

 

Ever.

 

Oh the kids have asked me to play repeatedly over the last few weeks (just like they’ve asked me to play in the student-teacher end-of-year volleyball game EVERY SINGLE YEAR even though I always politely answer, “No”), but I keep excusing myself and turning them down.  They walk away sad and dejected, and I’m sorry I send them to that place, but that’s just the way it has to be.  I won’t play organized sports, not even for cute little kids.

 

Now before you accuse me of being a heartless jerk bent on dashing children’s hopes and dreams, I should tell you that I’m game to do almost anything else other than organized sports.  In years past, I have allowed my students to paint my face green for a day as the result of a lost challenge, I have offered to shave off my mustache numerous times (which would effectively make me appear be twelve again), I’ve ridden countless amusement park rides with countless kids just because they asked me to, I’ve spent thousands of dollars of my own money on experiments and music and supplies to make things interesting and fun, I’ve come in early for STUCO meetings and pulled all-nighters putting together the yearbook, I’ve cooked breakfast for my entire class, I’ve trusted them in the bowels of caves and on the tops of soaring granite boulders (teaching is NOT for the faint of heart), and I’ve learned to rap for them.  I was even a three-hundred-pound drag queen for a class that wasn’t even mine in the talent show one year.  You need something done, no matter how strange or odd or silly or bizarre?  I’m your man!

 

But don’t ask me to play organized sports.

 

Why?

 

Oh that’s easy. 

 

I suck.

 

At least, that’s what I was told when I was a kid.  Often.  Repeatedly.  By everyone.

 

Okay, “told” is an understatement.  I was teased and berated and vilified over my pathetic athletic ability.

 

And those words cut me to the core.

 

Truth be told, I am admittedly quite uncoordinated.  I have always been that way, and I have always been painfully aware of it without the need of anyone pointing it out to my attention.  I can’t serve a volleyball well enough to make it over the net.  I don’t understand a single thing about football.  I can’t dribble a basketball with my hands or a soccer ball with my feet.  DO NOT ask me to hit a fast-flying baseball with that tiny stick, and bowling was never bowling with me-- it was guttering! 

 

But the worst? 

 

The worst was always kickball.

 

My fear and loathing of organized sports most definitely began with elementary school kickball.

 

Kickball was an institution unto itself in the little town I moved into and grew up in.  If you were a child of the early 80’s living in Iola, Kansas, you were expected to play kickball.  If the weather was at all decent, we played kickball in PE where Mrs. Yokum tried and tried to teach me how to kick that stupid ball.  I can still see the pitcher haunch over and draw his arm back to deliver the pitch with that evil gleam in his eyes assured that I would miss it. 

 

And I did.

 

Always.

 

Groans of disgust from my teammates.

 

Uproarious laughter from the other team.

 

Shame and humiliation on me.

 

If there were reward days, especially in fourth grade, the kids always voted to play kickball.  Our teacher, Mrs. Hawk, would appoint herself referee and hush even the faintest hint of a jeer or jibe with one steely glance from behind her thick glasses-- at least while she was looking.  The moment she would turn away (usually to reapply that garish Avon red lipstick), the ribbing would start and I knew another hellacious game would ensue resulting in anger and shunning from the other kids.

 

And recess?  Man, don’t even get me started on recess.  Thankfully, at least then, I could opt out and not play the game.  Of course, I’d spend the rest of the time playing by myself because every-stinkin’-one else was playing-- you guessed it-- kickball.

 

The worst part of the experience, though, was picking teams.  If you’re cursed like me, you’ve been there and know what I’m talking about.  Nothing stinks more than being picked last, by every captain, every time.  Actually, it’s not so much being picked last as it is becoming the kickball equivalent of leftovers-- no one wants you and everyone complains when they get stuck with you.  When the jocks were captains, they flaunted how much they hated getting stuck with me.  When my friends were captains, all sense of loyalty fizzled away as they too realized they were stuck with me.  Heck, in the rare instances when the nerds and other outcasts (the few that I hypocritically perceived as being even lower than the social ladder than myself) were captains, they seized the moment of realization that for once even they were superior and any shred of decency was thrown to the wolves.

 

Man, I hated kickball.

 

I STILL hate kickball.

 

So here I am, forty plus years after those terrible elementary school years where the fear and loathing of organized sports took root in my soul, and I continue to get all jittery and nauseous when I’m asked to play.  I’m sure many of you won’t understand, especially those of you who are good at sports or we’re never ridiculed for your lack of skill.  Some of you may even be reading this and thinking, “Dude, it’s like forever ago-- get over it.”  Hmmmm.  Tell that to the grown man who refuses to sing the National Anthem at a ballgame because he was told he can’t sing.  Tell that to the mom that dreads cooking for her own family because her husband told her she couldn’t compare to his mom.  Tell that to the fat kid who makes up excuse after excuse to get out of swimming in gym class because the other boys laugh at him and point at his belly (that kid was me).  Tell that to the teenage girl who cuts herself because she was told she was ugly.  Tell that to me and I’ll tell you to shut up.

 

Never think for a moment that words don’t hurt. 

 

Maybe you’re made of stiffer stuff than I, but I doubt it.

 

Having said all that, I have actually let go of the animosity I held for every kid that teased me, even though those wounds still persist.  It’s as if the infection has healed, but the scab is still fresh and painful.  I can forgive ignorance, I can forgive with the knowledge that hurt people hurt people, and I can forgive childish stupidity because, after all, children aren’t always mature enough to understand the knife’s edge that are their words.  However, that doesn’t mean for one second that I want to rip the scab off and bleed again.  I will forgive the perpetrator, but still have no desire to revisit the act.

 

You can ask me, but I will not play kickball.

 

Ever.

 

Okay, maybe someday I will, but not today.

 

Enjoy the game.  I’ll cheer from the sidelines.