Why watch when you can participate?
What sports did you enjoy playing? Tell us about your glory days, your four touchdowns in a single game moment that you relive or those moments when you felt the agony of defeet/defeat?
I used to run 5k-10k. Not great, but I was a serious runner from my mid 20s to my late 30s. I wasn’t all that competitive of a runner as I’m short and stocky which isn’t the idea body shape for a long distance runner but I didn’t embarrass myself like I did when I was a fat out of shape teen in high school.
One time, a friend of mine asked me to help run a half marathon with him with less than a month to prepare. I didn’t spend a lot of time running past 8k so I didn’t think I was ready. He said he just needed a pace man and he wasn’t a fast runner.
I ended up doing one 12k run on the weekend and didn’t have the time to go past that. I didn’t think I was ready for the half marathon, but we ended up finishing 21k at 2hr:10min ish. The only major injury I suffered was a blister on my heel. The other runners I knew at work were surprised I did so without too much issue.
The other sport I enjoyed playing was beach volleyball. Again, being short and stocky is a disadvantage in volleyball especially defending the net. I was known as being overly aggressive, someone who was prone to diving for the ball and for blasting powerful shots that flew way past the line compensating for lack of size and natural talent.
I played in a local league for two years down by the Toronto Waterfront. We did manage to make to the semi-finals both year but we were wiped out by much better teams. I am proud of the fact that we wouldn’t have made it to the semis in the first year if I hadn’t been the over aggressive diving shot smasher I was/am?
Killed the 2nd place team with several of my serves that ended up hitting the line for points. I won points from all the teams when I accidentally slammed the ball into the league’s biggest whiner’s face as he leaped to block one of my shots. To top it off I won the game with a backhander while diving away from the back of the court that I hit so hard that it arced right over the net and landed right on the line just out of the reach of their defenders.
Played some intramural ball hockey in university, but for some reason I ended up being the electrical engineering team’s goon as I was the 2nd most penalized player in the league and got a one game suspension for elbowing a lawyer after he cross checked me in the back of the head (the lawyers were the dirtiest team in the league.) My only shining moment was when I took out the football team’s primary running back with a hip check that sent him flying into the net to stop a possible breakaway that helped save our only win of the season.
I played soccer and ice hockey as a kid, but to be honest I wasn’t any good.
Or anything else that fits your fancy tonight!
I started running again and according to the online maps I can run up to five miles and change.
Or to be more accurate I can plod up to five miles and change. There was a time when I could run half marathons. Slowly, but not so badly. Today my step count is up to 19,000 and I’m glad about that.
Baseball. I loved playing baseball, but I wasn’t very good. I was even worse at basketball, but I love basketball above all other sports. I probably could have been OK, but I discovered girls and weed and music and that was that.
I was briefly on my school’s diving team. I loved the sport but was too undisciplined to make practices for long.
Diving scares the hell out of me. It combines the danger of dismounts in gymnastics with the risk of drowning.
But it’s so much fun!
I’m sure it is if you don’t land flat on your face like I did in my few times off a board.
Was it Greg Luganis who hit his head? (Looks it up)
Holy Madre de Dios!
I have a very weird family connection to Greg.
My parents signed me up for diving class off a 3m board because they wanted to cure of my fear of heights. I tried to do a sommersault dive and landed face first.
I hated diving class.
I went to a Catholic high school that made us swim naked, and no way was I getting up on that board in front of Brother Joseph and the other boys. So I never learned to dive.
Holy shit what decade was this? Also have you checked the priests’ names against the various sex offender priest lists because wow that is straight up sex abuse.
I played a ton of soccer as a kid & played waterpolo in middle school. It wasn’t until after high school I started playing volleyball 3 to 5x per week. I won a few beach volleyball tournaments in Hawaii which means something since that is the top sport besides surfing there. I’m most proud though of coaching my daughters teams from worst to first & then coaching with my daughter a team of younger girls from worst to first. I wanted to be a pro bodyboarder after high school & got some free stuff from sponsors but didn’t like competitions.
I got nothing…
Me neither. I never had glory days of any kind.
You are still my hero!
I am consistently horrible at all sports.
It’s impressive how bad I am.
I’m also not competitive so it works out. I mean I don’t think it’s anything in my nature that isn’t competitive. I very much identified at a young age that with my natural shitty athletic skills, being competitive would lead to a lot of disappointment.
I did a lot of track an field in high school. I was average at all the events but I really loved learning new skills and competing. My gym teacher signed me up for everything that lacked representation from our school which was basically most of them because I went to a small all girl school.
Volleyball is my favorite sport. I’ve played from highschool up until I injured my foot a couple of years ago. I enjoy a good consistent amateur rally. I could never play at a hardcore level because I’ve never been in shape just lucky to be tall and somewhat lean…now I’m just tall #thankspandemic
Oh and I loved badminton in high school! I’m all about those no contact competitive sports.
Unrelated
Daaaaammmnnn this bonus episode of Sandman
I just finished episode 3… I find the Sandman dude so boring. Everytime they zoom in on his silent brooding face, I see Blue Steel. I hope it gets more diverse than it is now. All the Black people have been side characters. Matthew the raven is a lame comic relief. I will probably watch it till the end since my husband says he is “not not liking it”.
Yeah the rest of the cast acts circles around him. For the first few episodes I was like okay you’re a tall skinny dude with floofy hair, that’s what you bring to the role.
Similar problem I have with Henry Cavill in general and his “I’m just going to glower and grunt through Witcher with my doofy potoo contact lenses.”
I liked Emo Tall Zoolander’s characterization more as the series progressed.
The Witcher is all about his limited lines, grunting as means of communication, and his banging bathing body.
The Sandman has been around humans and their dreams for long enough to at least have developed a bit more personality and understanding of humans.
The other team being on the other side of the net is a good thing in vball. Though my worst injuries were under the net. Waterpolo almost got me drowned by how much contact. I didn’t last long. I’m now too competitive for my age & have to learn my body can’t keep up with my ego & delusional mind.
Water polo is a brutal sport. I never went within 100 yards of it.
I briefly played a little rugby in high school. The better athletes made it clear I was dead meat when I got the ball and tried to make a break for the goal.
I’ve learned mostly to be happy these days with beating expectations with how I do running or paddling or shooting on a goal. Not falling on my face — that’s a good day.
We had to literally tread water for 3hrs at the early practices. Our coach was a psychopath math teacher that launched chalk erasers at us if we talked in class (private school). I didn’t last long. Now kayaking & paddle boarding is my zen place with occasional Hawaii surf trips.
I’ve got a questionable shoulder and surfing is a 50-50 gamble now, but I’d love to have learned it back then.
If you haven’t read William Finnegan on surfing I’d highly recommend his writing.
In junior high, I was on park district volleyball, baseball, and basketball teams. I have to say, I was damn good at hitting what I aimed for, but that’s mostly because I was always terrible at the running part. This body was built for comfort, not for speed! I could shoot free throws all day, and I was aces at serving into the bare spots of the other teams. Also, numerous home runs because if I didn’t hit it hard as hell, I would barely make it to 1st base!
Other than that, though, I did an assortment of dance and gymnastics classes, and played badminton and softball with friends. I was always mad that my dance teachers wouldn’t let me go en pointe, but I’ve been 5’8″ since 7th grade and well, hardly a delicate sort of flower. Now, I’m grateful for it, because my joints are in bad enough shape!
I always loved the feeling of running, but between asthma and what was probably already the beginnings of arthritis in my knees and hips, running has never loved me back.
Trust me you did not miss anything not doing pointe. I did 6 months of it when I was 13 or so after years of ballet and I remember being like “what part of my toes are bleeding, now???” and being told to just pack more loose wool in the shoes. No thanks, I was a quitter and okay with it.