At the age of four, my father enlisted his monkey in the middle (thats me) on a co-ed soccer team with the menacing title of "Blue Jammers". I begged him to let me stay home and play with my cabbage patch doll who was in desperate need of a haircut, but he heard none of my pleas, and before I could cry to my mother for a feminine and understanding ear, I was reluctantly trudging to my fate in what would be the first (and last) soccer game of my career.
I should have known from the pre-game stain on my jersey that this game (and my sanity) was doomed. During my debut minute, as I ran alongside my cohorts in blue, I was knocked out (actually...knocked OUT) by an excessively forceful Aryan tot on the opposing team. I'm convinced he was recruited from a family of giants; this fucker did some damage. Not only was I left with a grass-and-tear-stained pout, but the game happened to fall on my birthday. All I know is that I gained consciousness halfway through my clown-themed fourth birthday party, and I was too disoriented to jump on my own damn moon bounce. Thanks Dad.
This mishap didn't stop my dear old Dad though, ohhhh no. His prescription for my ailment was to rub some dirt in it and suit up for a childhood and adolescence dominated by swimming, tee-ball, softball, volleyball and the occasional bout in naked mud wrestling. All this to say, I was force-fed sports my entire upbringing, and although I resisted initially, I will now proudly say that I know and love sports thanks, in large part, to my overbearing Fasha.
And so, now, every Friday night, I cover high school football as a member of the media. I drive out to games across Central Texas and revel in the fact that so many of these angsty teens think I'm an actual anchor and stare at me with googly eyes as I strut up and down the sidelines. I love watching the football, but I never fail to catch myself distracted as I log each game.
It's not the form of those underage bootays in their football pants that has my eyes straying from the line of scrimmage, though. I'm staring at two parallel lines of pixies cheering their little hearts out and all I want is to snatch a pair of pom-poms from the awkward girl with noodle arms and join in! It's almost too much to bear!
For many of my girlfriends, sports are boring. They're ready to leave at halftime of a tied football game in favor of cosmos and ritas at the nearest bar. I'm proud to say that I'm not one of those girls. But I have to join the ranks and admit that watching those nuggets do backflips across the endzone makes me just as giddy as a 70-yard kick-off return would. And I'm a SPORTS intern!
This is embarassing for me to admit. I'm losing all of my credibility here, but this is a guilty-pleasure blog and so here I am, convicted of being a chick in the purest sense of the word.
In my next life, I'm going to be a cheerleader with a bedazzled jacket and no earthly idea what 1st and 10 means. Now back to this Redskins game...
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