Thursday, November 24, 2005

Picked Last

There is, I have discovered, an aura around every person. Evidently, everyone can see it but me. This aura tells people to pick me last for any form of sporting event. At a rough guess, I would say that 50-75% of the time I am picked last whenever there is a competitive physical activity where teams are being picked. I am convinced that if I played basketball and no one was more than 5 feet tall, I would be picked last. Maybe people just think I'm good-natured enough not to take offense. Mostly I don't. But I noticed that the really good players went, then the girls went, then the wild card "how will they play" people went, then me.

Technically, I didn't even get picked this morning. Everyone else got picked, I just went to the last team in the order. It was only flag football, and this sport definitely favors the fleet-footed, which I am not. And I didn't know most of the people there, so they may just have not wanted a stranger.

The result? In a game to 7 touchdowns, I threw for one, caught another, and made a more than proportional number of "tackles" for our team. We had no good chance containing one guy out there, but at least it wasn't just me.

Most amusing moment? First snap, we have the ball. I threw it to a girl on our team, about 5 yards down field. She turns to run, sees someone on the other team, and throws it at them. They catch it, and run it back for a touchdown. We then explained the rules a little more completely. It was funny, but the pounding headache I have from the unfortunate collision of my jaw with someone else's skull (a liability that comes with above-average height) is rendering me less than loquatious.

2 comments:

Drew said...

I totally hear you on this one. I was always the last one picked in anything as well.. kinda makes one feel like sayin' "gosh, I wish I was at least dirt, so I'm wasn't picked dead last." But then again, I was never amazing at any sport. I can put up somewhat of a fight playing defense in Basketball. But I don't know all the rules about what you can and can't due. I guess my size and height are my only advantages in b-ball. When/where did you play this game? And I imagine it was 2 hand touch since I'm sure the girls playing wouldn't take to well to tackle.

-Dave said...

"...It was only flag football..."

[smiles]

I can only wish it was tackle. No, not like that. It's just that tackle at least gives me one distinct advantage: momentum = mass x velocity. I might not have great velocity, but I have fairly solid mass.

Then again, the last time I played tackle football, a guy got a concussion when he tackled me and pulled me down on his head. I still feel bad.

And, we played at Grace Warner, across from the church. Big field, lots of room to run around. It was fun. I can't wait to do it again.