What are we all yelling about?

My complicated relationship with sports

I’ve never been what you’d call athletically inclined. That made me an outlier in a family where sports were a shared moral framework, a kind of secular faith built around schedules, stats, and team loyalty. I was the heretic. My competitive peak was apologizing to someone who beat me at Monopoly.

But that doesn't mean I've avoided athletics. My pursuits just weren’t about winning so much as discovering muscles in places I’d assumed were decorative.

My illustrious career began with dance classes: tap, ballet, jazz. I wore sequins, tulle, and the smile of misdirected ambition. Did I know the steps? Absolutely. And I’m pretty sure I invented sparkle hands.

Photo by Ksenia Chernaya

Horseback riding was like ballet, but with helmet hair and a 1,200-pound dance partner with a chip on his shoulder. I never galloped, but it always felt imminent, the horse and I circling the ring as he weighed his options for an involuntary dismount.

To this day, my shins anticipate trauma when someone drops a spoon.

For awhile, I was deep into gymnastics. I could do front and back walkovers, twist myself into uncanny shapes, and arch into a bridge like I was boneless. Then puberty hit and proportions shifted. New body parts showed up and interfered. Handsprings now came with a side order of unfamiliar physics. And so ended that exploration.

On swim team, I specialized in being the weakest link in the relay, though I was unmatched in enthusiasm at the warm-up. Technically, I swam. Mostly, I showed up for the gossip and the strawberry Jell-O powder, eaten with a finger. I could get across the pool without a full aquatic disaster, but my style was more Steve Martin than Mark Spitz.

In junior high, sports became mandatory, which is how I ended up playing field hockey, a game invented by angry Victorians to punish girls with opinions. My stick always pointed the wrong way. It felt like a scavenger hunt without the element of delight. Afraid of getting smashed, I shuffled around the perimeter like someone doing laps at the mall. To this day, my shins anticipate trauma when someone drops a spoon.

That’s me, way in the back. Change the stick for a mitt, move the ball to the air, and you’ve got softball. Photo: Harry Pot / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Shockingly, I made the softball team. This was less about merit and more about enrollment numbers that barely hit the double digits. I went to a very small private school. If you could tell your glove hand from your sandwich hand, you were in. I threw like a trebuchet, vigorously and with consequences. Visible and out there, I played right field like I was guarding the edge of another dimension. When I dropped a fly ball, it wasn’t just bad luck, it was the natural result of trying to catch something moving faster than my confidence.

When I tried out for cheerleading, I thought: finally, a sport that understands me. I had spirit. I had volume. I had legs that just kept going. Seven girls tried out. Two of us were cut. Statistically, impressive. Emotionally, like being dumped by a boyfriend I didn’t know I was dating. The judges said I was too loud. Apparently, I cheer in a register best suited for air-raid sirens.

In tennis, I worked on perfecting my serve. It had an elegant, almost philosophical arc, as if the ball were pondering whether boundaries were just a social construct. It often concluded they were.

For a while, I was a cyclist, and I wasn’t bad. Hills slayed me, but I held my own on the flats and there was always the option to distract people with my tight pants. I had a training buddy who was really into me. He missed the part where I was supposed to like him back. He gave up rest days just to be near me and my Lycra. It was either infatuation or stalking with cardiovascular benefits.

It was cathartic to have an excuse to scream in public.

As a runner in my twenties, I could manage about three miles before looking like I’d just outrun a swarm of bees. My doctor gently informed me that it wasn’t asthma, I just wasn’t in shape, which felt unnecessary considering the dying-animal noises I’d made trying to breathe through my eyelids.

In my forties, I circled back to train for a 10K. I liked the simplicity of running—no gym membership, just shoes and determination. That the berry-red shade of my face prompted backward glances from strangers was, apparently, part of my process.

Karate classes with my kids were interesting. It was cathartic to have an excuse to scream in public. During a sparring match, I accidentally hit my partner in the nose. I stopped mid-fight to apologize profusely. She did not stop. She landed a perfect roundhouse kick to my ribs while I was still explaining how sorry I was. I admired her commitment. I also couldn’t sneeze for three days.

And because I apparently believe any activity with a sign-up sheet counts as a sport, I once tried contra dancing. It sounded wholesome and vaguely colonial, like something you’d do in a barn while wearing brown clothing. In practice, it was square dancing at warp speed. I missed a step early, threw off the rhythm, and received the kind of withering look only a woman in a denim vest and orthopedic clogs can deliver. I stuck it out for another allemande and a right-hand star before heading for the snack table.

Winning feels great—of course it does! But losing is a drag

To be clear, I’m not against athleticism. I stretch. I sweat. I am a faithful participant in many different classes at my local Y. But I’ve never fully understood sports culture—the jerseys, the brackets, the impassioned hollering at televisions. Despite my familial training, I frequently learn there was a “big game” the morning after it happens, when someone asks if I caught the ending. I judge them on their willingness to change the subject.

I don’t mind the effort required to achieve something. Winning feels great—of course it does! But losing is a drag, especially on a team where your mistakes aren’t just your own, they’re shared. Suddenly, it’s not just defeat, it’s identity theft. Your name disappears. You become a missed point, a bumbled pass, a dropped ball with a heartbeat.

Photo by Liam Nguyen on Unsplash

That’s what I never quite understood. How can a game played with plastic cones and clipboards provoke the same emotional response as being audited? Wasn’t this supposed to be fun?

I respect that team thinking can become a proxy for hope, pride, even grief. I just never saw the point of turning athletic achievement into a public referendum on worth. It wasn’t drive I lacked, it was belief in the idea that winning somehow meant more than just being the least bad at something that day.

I may never have mastered sports, but I once saw a woman eat a granola bar in a sauna without blinking. That, to me, is winning. There should be ribbons. Possibly a parade.

~Elizabeth

This is dangerous territory, I know. Possibly worse than political commentary. People are serious about their teams. It’s been a couple of years since I last tried to explain my lack of affinity for sports. Maybe some of you will feel inclined to join me in the sparkle hands department.

Chatting with my readers is like the social part of a swim meet. Y’all are my strawberry Jell-O, my main event, the real reason I’m here! Love sports? Avoid them? I hope you’ll share your experiences in the comments!

Likes (💚) and restacks (♻️) are also much appreciated and help me reach new audiences. And let’s be honest, writers also have their ways of wanting to win.

Reading and listening here at Chicken Scratch is all free, a weekly gift I am pleased to offer. Still, a collection of generous souls are choosing to support the work with paid subscriptions and one-time donations. If you have the means, I’d be so grateful. (Special thanks to Dorie!)

No matter how you choose to show up, I appreciate your help in keeping this conversation going.

Bonus photo:

Nothing cooler than dancing to Kool & the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie” Fish tank for effect.