It was when I was 18 or 19 barely on the cusp of my twenties, and what feels like a life time ago. One foot barely in college I decided to sign up for a course called "Soccer/Basketball." They were my two favorite sports and I thought What better way to knock out my PE credit??
I would later come to find out that this had no such effect on my PE credit and I'd panic, take up Musical Theater dance, all while trying to graduate with two degrees.
It worked out.
But being a freshman I was oblivious to all of this.
I started my Soccer/B-ball class and was amazed by the upper classmen that had a handle on their lives! They drove cars to class instead of taking the trolley. They had apartments outside of campus housing. They talked about things going on in the world that had nothing to do with our college!
They were like...real people. And most importantly...
They were cool!
Being a part time theater major, I loved hanging out with these guys because they experienced real life as it happened. They had no clue who Sondheim was, but they could tell me what was on the top 40. I made friends with a few who saw me play in class and invited me to play on an intramural soccer team.
Ecstatic, I jumped on the opportunity with shin guards on!
To say we were a "team" was to be a little generous. In all honesty we were a group of friends who sometimes worked together. It was more fun to hang out and get some exercise than it was to say...play "by the rules?" And I, personally, was never great at the running back and forth over great expanses of space (why I did theater) so I was content to being goal keep and watching our "team" attempt playing a game with actual competitive teams.
Because our team so rarely scored, a lot of the time was spent on our side of the field. And that's when I was given my code name.
Baller.
Shot caller son!
I was like the Tim Howard of our Mighty Ducks team. I won't lie, I made some pretty great saves, and also talked a lot of shit.
I had completely forgotten about this nickname until I hung out with some friends downtown the other week. I had one of my comedy girls with me, and the nickname came as a bit of a shock. It was like pulling out a tshirt from the fourth grade that didn't quite fit anymore, but you could see me wearing it...maybe.
It's hilarious to think that I was once super into sports, but after being engrossed in this year's World Cup, the name came back with a certain amount of pride.
For two minutes, I felt kinda cool again!
ok maybe not "cool" necessarily...
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| Using my "Baller" skills in the webseries Soccer Moms |
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