I had a very athletic upbringing as my parents encouraged all of the kids to get involved in as many sports as possible. I was better than average at all the sports I played other than baseball, which I inexplicably sucked at.
One year though, my father got transferred to a new part of the country and all of a sudden I was an unknown on any team, any pickup game, any anything that I would get involved in. Previously, I had been one of the first chosen by any draft or any pickup games that I played of any sort. But here in this new part of Illinois (a part of the country that my family would remain in for a single year) I was a nobody. There was no reason for anyone to fear my abilities or to feel as though I would be a worthwhile addition to their team. Kids, especially at the age I was at the time, can be particularly cruel, so I was worried, that's for sure.
My parents signed me up for a summer training camp for soccer of the football variety right after we moved there and I guess the hopes was that my relative dominance in that sport was going to make me some friends. Well, it might have, but I was 12 and it's a pretty nerve wracking experience for someone that young getting dropped off and kind of thrown to the wolves. This was a developmental camp, not a screw-around-and-play-a-bunch-of-games camp so it was mostly drills and the abilities were not all that evident to other players.
I don't remember what the competition was that the organizers set up but I do remember the aftermath because it was something that would stick with me the rest of the time that we lived there.
The losing side in a lot of competitions back in those days would do something called "Butts up" where they would all line up side by side in the goal, and the winning team would take shots at them in the goal, trying to hit them. This sounds cruel but what can I say? The 90's were a different time.
All of the winners, of which I was one, got to take a shot at these other kids lined up. While I didn't really want to hit any of these people, I barely knew any of them, I lined up and decided to do my best and completely shanked the ball. It flew wildly off target. It was not only in no danger of striking the kids in front of me but it flew off the court entirely. I had to hold my head in shame and go chase the ball.
These other boys had never met me before, but it would be in in their mind that this one kid, the new kid, must really suck. Little did they know that I was actually considerably better than most of them and would end up getting all sorts of awards later in life and even get a Division-1 athletic scholarship a mere 4 years later. But none of that matters in the realm of what was public opinion at that time. in the mind of all of these kids, I was a terrible soccer player and that was that.
I would later be in school with a lot of these kids and when I was trying out for the high school team I was overshadowed by this one screw up. I think even the coaches had heard about it because I was bypassed for the A-team and was placed on the B-team.
Later on in the year when my abilities started to shine and I got my head right and had confidence, the coaches basically begged me to move to the A-team, but I refused.
My family moved away from that city back to the one we had moved there from in the following year. I was quite pleased to have that happen actually and by doing so, we may have actually put things in motion to get my that scholarship to begin with.
That one day had a real step backwards as far as my confidence was concerned and the thing is, 99 times out of 100 I am going to hit not just the goal, but you could have chosen a particular kid that was lined up and hit them easily. It was just one of those freak things like Michael Jordan missing a layup. It doesn't make sense but it does happen. That was just really unfortunate timing for an already quite vulnerable "new kid."
Thankfully I had (have) amazing parents and they continued to support me and push me towards excellence well beyond that one day.
It's funny how you remember the truly horrible stuff the most though. I can still see the mocking faces of the other boys on that field that day as they looked at me with a sense of superiority. I will admit that I did really relish defeating those same faces later on in the school year though. That was epic justice.
