It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you gossip on the sidelines

Growing up, I tried almost every sport. Basketball for a year, cheer leading for a year (my mom said I was the most miserable little cheerleader she ever saw...I was 8), softball for 7 years, soccer for 4 years, and volleyball for another 4 years.

I've always heard people talk about how sports taught them what it meant to be a team--the importance of working with others to achieve goals, etc. etc.

Holy shit there is a commercial for the HipHopMagician on right now and the number at the bottom of the screen is 718. I'm going to miss being home.

Where was I?

What sports taught me. Sports didn't really teach me much about team work per se. Softball taught me that walking up to strangers' houses and asking to use their bathrooms isn't always a good idea. Softball also taught me that being friend's with the coach's daughter doesn't mean you get to play, but that the sidelines was where all the good gossip was, anyway. It taught me that you couldn't disappoint anybody when you didn't really play, which meant that after the embarrassing games your dad would take you for Wendy's anyway, because his daughter had nothing to do with the team's loss.

Volleyball taught me that being on a completely defeated team (not a single win) was way funner than being on an undefeated team because there was no pressure. Losing all the time helped us to appreciate the finer points, like a good serve or returning the ball into the face (or ass) of a girl on the other team. Volleyball taught me to be grateful for St. Greg's, because no matter how much of a shit hole it was, at least it wasn't that school in Breezy Point that smelt like dead fish, or that school on Union turnpike that had an Eastern European/Indian flea market in front of it.

And soccer taught me that even though my dad can come across as aloof, he will always stick up for me and be there for me when I need him, even if that meant screaming at the coach in front of all the parents.