Friday, March 7, 2014

My utter disdain for SPORTS!!

Well, it is club volleyball season again and I utterly despise this time of year.  I love that Kinlee loves to play and I really enjoy going to watch her.  However, I have such anxiety every year because I know this might be the year that I snap.  I guess now is a good time for a little background. 

Lets start out by me admitting that I really hate sports.  Not really sports themselves, but the evil people (parents) that sports create.  I have played my fair share of sports not on organized school teams and such, but city league teams that I pay to play and they really have had no other choice that to let me play, because I did pay.  But, lets go back even further than my city league days.  My friends were all pretty sporty people and in Jr. High when they tried out for volleyball, I thought that is what I should do too.  Long story short I was not good enough and therefore I did not get to play with my friends.  I was okay just watching from the sidelines and I think I managed some in Jr. High.  Then in high school my freshman year I decided I would try out for the drill team, since I wasn’t sporty, maybe I was dancy.  Nope DENIED, I didn’t make it.  That was a very long time ago and so I don’t remember much, but I do remember what I didn’t do.  My sophomore year was a little different, I figured out how to schmooze the volleyball coach and be the volleyball manager and guess what that meant, I got to travel with my friends.  However, that year the varsity volleyball team went to state in Northern Idaho and the varsity manager couldn’t go, so I got to go.  But, none of my friends went, only a bunch of older girls that weren’t necessarily my “friends”.  I had to room with the coach (who I am pretty sure now was gay) and I was eternally grateful to the one other girl who decided to room with us so I wasn’t alone.  That trip didn’t cost me or my parents anything, which I was really happy about because if that was the case there was absolutely no way we could have afforded for me to go (but I was going as a favor anyway).  I didn’t mind going and I still remember the school bus we travelled 12 hours in getting stuck on a pass and we really did have a good time.  I think that year I also tried out for the drill team and made it, I was a busy girl. 

Okay, I think I got off track a little.  Anyway, Jerika tried playing softball (which is my favorite sport to play) and she hated it.  I was even her coach her second and she begged me not to have to play.  This was however my first experience with a few moms from Sugar City and their questionable sportsmanship (or over competitiveness).  As a result, Jerika didn’t want to play sports again and our singer was born.  Kinlee on the other hand wanted to play volleyball and she started in the 4th grade, which I didn’t realize was way too late!!  The high school team for her age had already been chosen before they were out of grade school.  She was put on a team that year that lost A LOT and so the next year another one of the moms along with me made a little stink and strongly requested that the “girls” be split up.  The other moms were not fans of us and one of the “moms” I had issues with in softball was the person in charge of club volleyball.  Long story short, all I really wanted was for my kid to be treated equally.  Since then there have been ups and downs.  Kinlee of course tried out for the 7th grade team and didn’t make it, but we already knew that would happen and I wasn’t bitter, really.  Now we start the newest club volleyball season and I have the opinion during club volleyball that we all pay the same amount of money, so each child should be able to have the same amount of playing time.  I really hope that is the case because I am ready now for a knock down drag out if need be.  I do want to her have fun too.  She was the manager for the 7th grade team and was able to practice every day with the girls, but wasn’t able to play in the games.  So, I really want her to be able to play, fair is fair, or isn’t it?
That is my little tangent about that now onto my other tangent about sports.  This is about the amount of money our schools pay to send the players to state games.  I know I said the school paid for me to go in high school, but it seems like that money could be used for actual “schooling” and maybe there is some secret fund I am not aware of, who knows, but shouldn’t we be focusing more on the learning and not the sporting.  Here is my last statement for this and remember this is my blog and I get to say whatever I want and you may hate me, but here it goes.  It is my feeling that kids that are in sports are treated “different” in high school than the “other” kids and by different, yes I mean better.  I really wish I was good enough with the written word to fully explain my feelings on this matter, but I don’t think I can do it justice.  So, I will end with the fact that I really dislike sports and the evil it brings out in people and sometimes even myself.  These aren't all the stories I have, but I figure these are my personal ones and I will leave the others for the owners to tell.  The End.  I may have been all over the place on this, maybe one of these days I will be able to articulate my feelings a little better.

No comments: