Blogging Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed: Part 8

Oh, humanity.

This time I was able to take a trip back in time to Fitness for Life. Oh freshmen year. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Actually it was mostly the worst of times. And HALF of that was Fitness for Life.

Recently, I've become what I am proud to call athletic-ish. This is a case in which exercise doesn't bother me as it once did. However athletic a person may be, however, I would say Fitness for Life is still a class that is nearly impossible to enjoy. And here is one reason why:

We would play random, weird made up games. That sucked.

And today in class, we played one of those games.
They called it Gatorball. I just called it Why Is This Happening To Me? Suffice to say it was a complicated combination of soccer and...come to think of it, I don't really know. Basketball, maybe? Football? Rugby?

The main purpose of the game was to kick the ball into the goal. Which was really the only way it applied to me, since after wandering around aimlessly for a while, I decided to retreat back to my old, elementary school ways and be the goalie. I actually make an okay-ish goalie. My tactics were simple. When the ball comes towards you, move in front of it.

Most of my epic saves include the ball bouncing off of my legs or feet through sheer luck. Though I forsaw bruises in my not too distant future, my method was working...until we played the second team, who was significantly better and a lot more brutal than the first team we played. Suffice to say that I didn't make as many saves as before, but only because half of them I jumped out of the way to prevent my face getting knocked off by a soccerball coming towards me at about a billion miles per hour.

Luckily, I survived.

Time for a story. This is Tom. Tom graduated class of '79 at Timpview High School. He was a good kid, not the brightest tool in the shed, but passed with a solid 3.0 GPA. He enjoyed sports, he wrestled, played a little bit of baseball, but loved to play basketball. His favorite class that Timpview offered was Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed. When they played basketball he happily donned the red-orange mesh jersey he was given and ran out to play some ball, thus making the jersey all sweaty and gross, but it didn't matter, because Tom, a shy youngster who had great things coming for him, was having fun.

32 years later, Kaela picked up the same jersey dear Tom had once worn, and wondered, "How old is this thing? How many sweaty men-folk have worn this? It smells weird."

Honestly, I don't think those things have ever been replaced. And since the dawn of man, I have always thought they were gross and weird and I feel nasty whenever I put one on.

Moving on...

So we played real live actual not gatorball but actual soccer. Which lasted for about ten minutes. Because what happens when you get a bunch of guys together, playing a sport, feeling all sweaty, and wearing gross mesh jerseys? The testosterone levels go sky high! And what ends up happening is the guys try to see just how far they can kick the ball.

But what happens when you kick the ball up into the upper level of the Thunderdome? Apparently the janitor guy, Cliff, gets really, really mad! He chewed us, and the teachers, out for a while, and then left us wondering, what now? He told us that we can't kick the ball inside the gym. Which hopefully, will mean that we won't end up doing a soccer unit and it will be replaced with tennis!!

Quick note:
All the guys in that class know me as the girl who can't do anything right. And I don't blame them. My basketball skills are limited. The phrase "Kaela's soccer skills" is an oxymoron, or logical fallacy. Whatever those things are.
However, I know that if I could get onto a court, with a decent racket, (preferably my own, but I'm not picky. Actually, yes I am. Whatever.) then I could show those guys that I'm not a completely hopeless case! How would they feel then, after making fun of how short I am, and how bad I am at basketball, how would they feel after I totally wasted them in tennis?!
The truth is, either they wouldn't care at all, (which is most likely) or I might actually gain a few respect points from them! Ah! How fantastic would that be!?

Whew. Enough hopeless dreaming.

In the end, we ended up playing handball, which was basketball with a soccer ball. And I just kind of chilled out of the way.

Someday, I will prove myself in this Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed class. However, this day will more than likely not come during our soccer unit. I'm about 80% sure that Volleyball is next though. Wish. Me. Luck.

Peace!