Athletic. This is not a word that anyone I have ever met has used to describe me. If you saw me at the grocery store precariously trying to coax a can of chicken noodle soup off of a high shelf, you most certainly wouldn’t peg me as athletic or graceful. We’ve already been through my most embarrassing moment of landing on a cheese pretzel in front of a group of Japanese businessmen and yet, and yet, I played varsity tennis in high school. Shocked, aren’t you? Not only did I play, but I was the co-MVP my senior year with my doubles partner. I was secretly athletic, but it only appeared for an hour or two every afternoon in the fall. Other than that, it completely abandoned me.

This is a picture of me that appeared in our local newspaper. Isn’t it lovely? In my defense, it was 1995 and I am fairly certain that people still used scrunchies in their hair. I think. Other than that, there is no defending my horrendous posture. This is exactly what you should not be doing when playing tennis. It looks more like a dance move in a Michael Jackson music video than something you would see on a tennis court. Weird pose + bad hair + tongue stuck out = not exactly what I envisioned when I saw the photographer at my match. I seriously think that the newspaper people were making fun of me. That, and the fact that they had waited years for someone to come along so that they could use the Estee Laud line. Such clever sports writers.

This is one of two pictures that showed off my mad skills, but I refuse to post the other picture because I looked horrendous. I should have been super excited to have my picture appear in the paper, but come on now, I look horrendous. Seriously. The picture shows my uber-graceful doubles partner, Kristen, returning a booming forehand in perfect form while I am standing there in the foreground of the picture looking vaguely like a largish rhino. Something about the angle of my hat, oh, and the fact that I am totally blurry. A blurry rhino. As much as I would like my future grandchildren to gasp in horror at my large zoo animal self, I think I will spare us all and not display this photo in a high traffic area in my home. Ok, maybe you deserve to see the rhino picture just to see how horrific it is.

See? I’m not going to say I told you so.

Regardless of the fact that the tennis photographer guy had a vendetta against me, I still managed to occasionally show up and rock it out on the court. This was not without drama. We would have been shocked and amazed if there had not been any drama though, right?  First of all, I had to wear a skirt. A tennis skirt does require the added protection of those spankie things, but still. The best though, is when you forget them.

One very crisp Saturday morning in October I had the City Invitational and pulled on my warm-up pants and then the skirt on top of that as I hurriedly left the house. It wasn’t until Ktisten and I were getting ready to start the match that I realized, um, I am missing something here. I ran to the fence and whispered to my dad, “you have to go home and get my underwear things… you know… those things so people don’t see my underwear.” Saying that his face turned red was an understatement. When he returned 10 minutes later, he handed them to me, nicely packaged in a brown paper bag. Such a good dad.

Even when I was properly dressed, I still managed to fall all over the place or cause some sort of chaos. We had to do these grapevine things with our feet while we ran around the perimeter of the courts and I almost always landed on my head. During the Regional tournament I ran to return a wicked backhand and slipped on some wet leaves that were at the back of the court and did some kind of dive that resulted in some very painful injuries to my behind. Oh yes. And did I mention that my parents, high school boyfriend and high school boyfriend’s parents were watching? You could hear the sharp intake of breath coming from the lawn chairs outside the court as I skidded on the asphalt. There was also an incident that involved me hitting my coach square in the forehead with a tennis ball during volley drills and me having to run laps until my legs gave out, but the details are a bit, um, foggy on that one.

I can still see my dad sitting under the tree behind my court giving me secret hand signals throughout my matches. I can also see my coach stomping out there to tell him to stop, since talking to me was strictly forbidden. He was always there, and he always supported me in my athletic-ish endeavors. I thought of my dad as I stood on the sidelines at Breuklyn’s very first soccer game while Brad and I yelled, “The other way! Go the other way!” as she scored her very first goal… for the other team. Like mother, like daughter. What could be better than that?

That’s my take, what’s yours? I know that we’ve got some fun sports related stories out there, let’s hear them! This week, one winner will receive a $20.00 gift certificate to the Scrapbook.com Superstore! I can’t wait to hear your stories. Have a great week!