Embarrassing Sports stories from our childhood

I have been a fat person all of my life, barring a few stints in my 20s and 30s.

I am a deep introvert and somewhere on the spectrum. In-person human interactions have always terrified me. Such terror that I was not able to build friendships or even have meaningful communication with anyone through perhaps my sophomore year in college. Food was my comfort.

A high school administrator encouraged me to wrestle during my freshman year, pulling strings with the coach to put me on the team. The first meet, they had me wrestle exhibition. When the match was over, everyone was in the stands laughing like demons. Wearing the ear protection gear, I couldn’t really tell what was going on. My head was ringing and I was disoriented like a cat with a head cone. I was just standing there in the middle of the mat. I noticed that members of my coaching staff were also laughing with the crowd.

Sometime later, seemed like several minutes that they left me standing there, a kind member of my team walked over to me and let me know that my fat child boobs were hanging out of my singlet.

After the meet, some kid was making fun of me in the van ride home and flicking the back of my head. That was the first time that I ever struck someone, turning around and bloodying his nose.

I count this event as one which solidified my disgust for small-minded, simpleton culture, a disgust which gave me the opportunity to explore new ways of thinking and living without the concerns of losing family, friends, social networks, etc.

I have become human trash because of that journey.

I was the best pitcher in little league.  Had big time heat.  Scared all the other kids to death. But, I was a horrible batter.  Struck out every time.  Then in the all-star game I made contact and hit a towering bomb over center field.  It went miles over the head of the center fielder.  There was no fence but it was a sure home run.  One problem, I was so in awe that I not only hit a ball, but hit it so impressively. I missed tagging first base. Had to turn around and tag it.  Ended up being a double.  Hell. 

When I was 11, at baseball practice a foul ball was hit over the fence along the 1st base line that separated the baseball field from a vacant lot. I don’t remember why, but a few of us were racing to see who could climb the 6 foot tall chainlink fence the fastest to retrieve the ball. As I reached the top and started to go over, my shoelace got caught on the top of the fence and I was left dangling by my shoe for about 20 seconds until my shoelace broke.

In junior high basketball, I was shooting a couple of freethrows after being fouled. Before I shot the freethrows, a technical foul was called on the opposing team. Our coach called us over to the bench to tell us that after I shot my two freethrows he wanted our best freethrow shooter, who happened to be his son, to take the technical foul shots. After I swished my two freethrows, the coach quickly changed his mind about who would shoot the technical freethrows, deciding to keep me at the line since I had the hot hand. I subsequently airballed the first attempt, and then barely drew iron on the second attempt.   

Back in ’82 I was a quarterback in High School. I could throw that pigskin a quarter mile. Only the coach wouldn’t play me. Had he put me in in the fourth quarter we woulda been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind.

On the floor of the Huntsman with 300 kids sitting down at the Rick Majerus basketball camp – I was 12 or so – Big Rick was doing the introduction to the camp. He asked a question about what we should do for game preparation. My hand shot to the air. My mom had given me a sports performance article the day before about visualizing your sports performance. When he called on me I froze and my mind went blank. I blurted out, “meditation!”. He chuckled and said, “you mean like alms and stuff”? I sure as s**t didn’t know what alms were but I nodded yes in my frozen state. He proceeded to make jokes about me throughout the camp about Andre Miller working on his pre game moves and this kid over here sitting cross legged on the bench with palms up doing alms and s**t. Haha.

As a kid from a small town (6,000 people), the fact that I earned a D1 soccer scholarship kind of made me a big deal. So in high school I used to get asked to make appearances at little kids soccer practices. I’ll be honest – it really fed my high school ego to get to talk to groups of kids, and I got pretty full of myself.

At one of these sessions, one of the kids asked me how hard I could shoot. I said “I dunno…wanna find out?” So I lined up a shot and I really cranked it. It flew just over the goal at 70+ mph, then dipped hard due to topspin…and nailed a pregnant lady who was chatting with a friend behind the goal. Hit her right in the stomach. She dropped immediately. They ended up taking her to the hospital. The baby ended up being OK, thank God.

From then on, if a kid asked me how hard I can shoot, I would just say “pretty hard. Next question…”

In church softaball one year we got to the championship game at the end of the year. We were down a few runs in the bottom of the 7th. We get to within one run, bases loaded and my friends brother is up. He gets to a full count with two strikes and has no more foul balls. Pitcher pitches a wild pitch that’s coming right for his head. He ducks but leaves his bat up there. The ball hits the bat, and goes foul. He struck out on a bad pitch because it hit his bat. We teased him for years about that.

Old coworker told me this one about himself and I’ve retold many times. Not as good as his storytelling style but here it goes…

Coaching a little kids soccer game and it’s a rout. So much that it’s getting him a bit frustrated. Then one play, there is a whistle to blow the play dead but the other teams’ kid doesn’t hear it and is dribbling right for the goal. Coach runs down the field and, as he puts it, “for the integrity of the game”, swats away the shot on goal of the kid. Short moment of shocked silence and then the parents start booing him.