This morning I found out that I have been awarded a scholarship for the Fall semester. It is the Green Bay Packers Scholarship, which lists criteria including community service, involvement in athletics, academic achievement, and financial need. Ok - WAIT WAIT WAIT - did they say INVOLVEMENT IN ATHLETICS? If that means watching football and cheering for the Packers, then yes I am "involved" in athletics. But if that means participating in sports of any type - they have the wrong person. Maybe I excelled so greatly in the other categories such as financial need, that they chose to overlook the fact that I have little to no athletic involvement. My hand eye coordination or lack thereof is frightening. I didn't even realize our school had a gym until graduation. The rare times I did realize I was required to take physical education class in high school (by the way thank you un-named high school gym teacher for RUINING an almost perfect GPA by giving me consistent grades of C in your classes), it was a nightmare for me. Typically the gym teachers didn't really want to "teach" so it felt like everyday we played volleyball. It would never fail that two of the most athletic people that ever existed in the history of the world were in my gym class and were of course chosen as team captains. I was always the last kid picked. And it seriously didn't matter if someone else was in a full body cast, they would get picked before me. The look on the face of either Mr. or Ms. Olympic team captain was priceless as they looked like they might vomit and said "I guess we're stuck with Karrie." It isn't shocking that every third day I had gym class I told the teacher I had cramps so I could spend the hour in the library using the encyclopedia to write a report about archery or golf. Yes people, real hardcover book encyclopedias, this was before Al Gore invented the world wide webs!
As residents of a city that has one of the BEST NFL teams ever, I now place more importance on sports, but that means supporting the Packers, not playing football with them. Having grown up in a small town where if you weren't in band or sports, you really didn't have much going for you, I remember trying to bargain with God when I said my bedtime prayers to just make me athletic. I would tell him he could make me fat or ugly, but please make me athletic! Now as an adult, it angers me probably more than most parents when you see the soccer moms or dads screaming at the kids on an elementary school soccer team (or the parents, or the coaches). There are people who take this way too seriously. I do believe the benefit of winners and losers even in a game with young children, because it helps teach them how to deal with losing hopefully with grace and class. So as parents getting upset and raging at these events when our "team" loses, we are not setting a very good example. I saw photo of a sign outside of a baseball field and to close this blog I would like to share what it says. "Please Remember: 1. These are kids, 2. This is a game, 3. The coaches volunteer, 4. The umpires are human, and 5. You do not play for the Cardinals."
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