A sense of pride: tales of America’s sport, dodgeball
By Gordon Ellms
When my eyes opened that morning, one thing came to my mind. It was the day I had been longing for. It was the day of the dodgeball tournament. Since I had slept in the clothes I was going to wear to the match, time was on my side.
Training the day before had left me agile and focused. All the members of the team arose simultaneously and tipped our hats to America while we stood in our doorways and cracked our first beers of the day.
There were no doubts in our minds that we had to demonstrate our patriotism on such an eventful day. Dodgeball is something that Americans take pride in from a young age. The Brazilians have soccer, or futbol, and the Brits have Cricket. Americans play dodgeball, goddamnit. Middle school gym class builds a true competitive foundation that is meant to last for the rest of our lives. There is something both patriotic and self-gratifying about really nailing someone with a dodgeball.
Anderson had been drinking steadily since Monday with frequent coma-like cat naps in various places thoughout the week. He was ready for more. We all spent the morning pre-gaming and laughing, dressed like warriors. Andy and I practiced the “BD” which was a move we had spent some time developing the year before. Basically Andy jumps off my back and casts down a dodgeball like the hand of Zeus upon unexpecting opponents. Insler hadn’t slept the night before, but he looked like a patriot. When it was game time we blasted one more Bob Seger tune and made our way to “the arena.” I’d say that the female reaction to our team was all around positive as we made our way to the gym. We may have looked good, but all we wanted to do was play.
As we approached the doors to the gym I could see a girl’s face through the glass gasp with horror as Anderson, enraged with a sense of patriotism, tore off his shirt and ran onto the basketball court proudly waving the American flag. It was beautiful. The games went on in a “round robin” system, which got really competitive and immature as time went on (which was great). You could cut the tension in the gymnasium with a knife.
Near the end we were pretty haggard. Four of us smoke far too many cigarettes and it would seem beer isn’t like Gatorade. Calls were questionable and cost us some games, and we ended up in third place. The fact is we played as well and as hard as we could, and that’s what America is all about. The initial blow of not taking home the gold faded quickly. All of us felt great about being able to show our country how much we love her. A true day of champions.
Short URL: http://www.themountaineer.org/?p=41
Posted by GMC Voices
on Feb 24, 2008 Filed under Athletics, First-Person.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
