I recently had a good time with some old friends on an email list sharing stories of the athletic humiliations of our youth. I’ve posted my favorite story under the fold.
Most bloggers and blog junkies are, of course, diamond-hard triatheletes jotting off a few lines between reps. For those of us who aren’t, share your funniest athletic embarassments as a young person. You’ll feel better.
My brief experience in EXTREME!!! sports. Skateboarding.
Don’t take money. (Bah! bah!)
Don’t take fay-eem. (Bah! bah!)
DON’T take no credit card to ride this tray-een.That’s right- nineteen eighty five. I’m all about Marty McFly and I somehow think that in this lieftime I can actually become cool by donning a skateboard. Maybe the girls will like me, the guys will like me and stop kicking my ass. (Bah! bah!) There I go down the street, a kicking and a swerving. Wobbily-bobbily and shit, barely even staying up.
I get the notion that I’m going to now graduate to skitching. The kid next door, who is like 5 years younger than me and is pretty much my only friend is riding his bike up and down the street. I tell him to rip on by and let me skitch on the back. (Bah! bah!) He’s coming, pumping those gears and is heading straight towards me. Apparently physics wasn’t my deal either and I assume that me rolling towards him and him pedaling towards me is gonna make for this awesome stunt where I (Bah! bah!) grab a hold of the back of his seat and am going to do a 180 (Bah! bah!) and pick up by seamlessly, sinuously reversing and going in his direction. (Bah! bah!) I had figured it all out a couple seconds before our encounter. Here he comes now (Don’t take money) I’m going get it…(Don’t take fay-eem) here he comes and I’m rolling towards him (Don’t take no credit card…) grabbing on…
That’s the POWA uv Lu…
BLAMMO! I missed that 180 I was going for, but I get the pavement. Right on my tooth. Chards of my front tooth explode all over the sidewalk and I’m laying on the ground feeling like a poser with blood and spit pouring out of my mouth. Why in God’s name I EVER thought I could pull this one off, I’ll never know. I’m screaming, crying and my Mom comes to the rescue and rushes me off to the dentist’s office. I’m shrieking in pain and horror reliving the moment over and over and the shock of the pavement was so extreme, I’m shivering in shock of what had just happened. The doctor tries to give me gas and I’m freaking the fuck out. I won’t let them. Then they shoot me up with novacaine and I’m losing my mind because now I can even feel the abcess in my mouth anymore with my tongue and I think I’ve lost ALL of my teeth. (Bah! bah!) The room is spinning, I’m trying to hold on, and I just pass out from all the blood and gore and tragedy of the day’s events. When I come to the dentist is telling me to relax. And now I can’t even speak. They patch up my mouth, put in a falsey, and now I’ve got to go back to my old L.A. Gear skateboard. Fuck this thing! I throw it in the trash in a blaze of anger and my days as a slick boarder are over for me. One thing I learned that day. Never, ever think that for one minute, Eric, you can actually do anything physically awesome with your body. Stick to the arts!
Today, I have wound up with a woman from Brazil that used to ONLY date EXTREME!!! dudes that were motocross maniacs, surfers, mountain climbers and the like. I am still wondering how she went from all of that to me. Must be my buttery soft, milky white skin. My ability to start fires within seconds with my specs. My thin and wispy red hair. Aaah, a real Superman for her.
{ 16 comments }
Jeremy Osner 06.10.05 at 10:43 am
Oh man, I can’t even start to get into that — my youth was a long series of atheletic embarrassments which denies enumeration.
Jeremy Osner 06.10.05 at 10:44 am
(and “funny” is not the word…)
JRoth 06.10.05 at 11:45 am
I had one moment of triumph in a childhood of dropped flies and spastic throws, but I guess I’ll have to wait for another thread….
cleek 06.10.05 at 12:16 pm
i played little league baseball one year. in the last game of the season, last inning, two outs, i hit a low fly ball directly to the right fielder – to lose the championship game. that was the last of my little league career.
one gym class in 9th grade, the coach had us run a lap around the track. i took off like a bullet and blew the rest of the class away. the coach, who was also the track coach, pulled me aside and told me i needed to join the track team. so i did. for the next few weeks, we did lots of long slow distance, many laps on the track, learned how to use starting blocks, ran a lot of 100m sprints and 800m runs to see where we’d fit in, etc..
then, the day of the first meet came. i was in the 400m. i got in my lane, waited for the gun, and took off running like a maniac – got ahead of everyone, cut to the inside, and won by many yards. nobody ever told me the 400m is run in-lanes. so, i was disqualified, and everybody had a good laugh.
Uncle Kvetch 06.10.05 at 12:35 pm
I had one moment of triumph in a childhood of dropped flies and spastic throws, but I guess I’ll have to wait for another thread….
Heh…same here.
I’ve got a nagging suspicion that for an awful lot of CT’s readers & commenters, the humiliations were the rule, not the exception…
Kirk Spencer 06.10.05 at 3:23 pm
I’ve a mixed humiliation and pride one. 8th grade, for some reason I’ve joined the track team. (At that age I was gawky geek, not pudgy geek in frame, so I didn’t stand out THAT bad.) Coach was always short so he decided to keep me, and kept trying to find a place I could do SOMETHING. I ended up running the mile.
First meet with this as my venture, we take off, and I’m staring at the backs of everyone else. About my third lap I’m seeing the backs of some of those jerseys again – Yep, I am lapped.
I get stubborn, and for one lap I’m the only person on the track, doggedly trudging around that circle. I reach the finish line and get a standing ovation from the stands – which at the time I thought a sympathy ploy. (thus ends the humiliation point).
Turns out I finished ahead of a third of the field. That third, as passed, slipped off the track and quit. I earned that ovation after all as the absences did not go unnoticed. And the next meet and the rest for that season, which had many of the same people running, had two informal races ongoing from the same start — the first group, and my group which had a few others decide they could at least finish if I could. Nope, no SO that time.
lalala 06.10.05 at 3:26 pm
I wasn’t terrible…not fabulous at any sport, but not-embarrassing at quite a few. I kicked ass at recess kickball in grade school, then on to swimming, horseback riding, a little tennis. Field hockey was not my best sport, but again, not embarrassing. I wonder if this is a gendered thing among blog-types.
John Quiggin 06.10.05 at 4:16 pm
I kept clear of individual sports, but losing 30-0 at (field) hockey was pretty humiliating. I can’t admit much responsibility. I was appropriately placed at left wing, which made me a spectator in a game where our goalie was the only member of the team to get much play.
Philoillogica 06.10.05 at 8:15 pm
My athletic embarrassment story is long, so I’ve posted it on my own site. But it involves my head, a sports bra, and utter physical ineptitude.
It took me five years to go back to that gym.
ProfWombat 06.10.05 at 8:35 pm
They chose up sides for punchball during recess. The athletic kids chose to be on the same side. The nerds were left over. When the dust settled, we’d lost by 215-3.
Billings 06.10.05 at 10:56 pm
As a superlative athlete in all sports, I never once felt embarrassment. Sorry.
Myca 06.11.05 at 1:57 am
Dude, Ted, was that Eric Ottens?
david tiley 06.11.05 at 12:07 pm
lalala – a gendered thing? For a moment I visualise the blogosphere spreading out through the darkness, humming with electrons, the men slumped and podgy, weeping quietly over this post, the women sweating lightly, thrillingly alive, hacky-sacking and typing at the same time.
rusty 06.12.05 at 7:48 am
Sixth grade track, we’re doing laps and I end up behind the fattest kid in class.I’m tall and skinny and wearing cowboy boots,clumping along like a giraffe w/a car stuck on each hoof.Whole class is waiting @ the finish line laughing while coach yells “If you do’nt beat him, you’ll drop and give me twenty!”. He got his twenty.
GDWrench 06.12.05 at 8:48 pm
Many years ago my high school gym class was playing a football game. In a huddle, the quarterback designated me as a reciever on the next play. I was to get through the line, and immediately cut back towards the center for a short high pass. I did what he wanted, and we made eye contact. I jumped just as he threw a low bullet pass that nailed me squarely in the nads. I curled up around the ball and dropped like a sack of potatoes. The thunderous laughter from everyone else barely made it through the haze of pain. At least I managed to hold onto the ball.
pyrator 06.13.05 at 5:47 am
OK so I’m a triathlete, but it has been a sweet weekend where I did nothing but eat, drink, engage in sex with my girlfriend, watch tv and surf the net. You’ve got to enjoy life, right!! Get over it. Those embarrassments were years ago and you’ve better things to do ;-)
OK just one memory and then I’m done.
One year at school I thought I was in a good frame to win the school sports day X country race. Previously I had been up against older athletes and hadn’t stood a chance but now they had left school. Now I was one of the top dogs. At the start I was off like a race horse and after the first circuit of the field before heading out to the woods I was a clear 100 metres ahead of the rest. By 1 kilometre I was suffering, and then the rest of the field overhauled me. I was in agony as much in shame at my stupidity for setting off so fast as my exhaustion at trying to sprint instead of running.
I think I finished about 50th place, my worst performance ever. Everyone wondered what had happened to me as I had seemed certain to win. I have never ever won a race since then, but then I never start too fast either.
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