BY JOELLEN COLLINS
I have never been adept at sports, partly due to a tough number of childhood years as an asthmatic that limited my learning many basic playground skills like running, balance, and coordination. Thus, I was usually the last girl chosen on any relay team. I spent my entire third grade at home, wheezing in my bedroom during other activities like reading, coloring while listening to the radio, and making up stories featuring my dollies “living” on my quilt. In junior high, one PE teacher thought I was malingering when absent, and her punishment was “No play: go weed the grasses by the field.”
Later, in high school, I dreaded Physical Ed classes, wishing to hide my skinny legs popping out from huge red bloomers. I also craved hiding during PE, when my unknown crush whose outdoor lunch area was located nearby would watch the girls play. I could hear him bellow out, “Hey guys, look at Bones (my nickname) and watch her strike out.” Many times, even after I grew out of asthma, I feared participating in sports.
However, I am, oddly, an avid sports fan. My high school had some accomplished athletes, like my eventual boyfriend, a sprinter, and our pole vaulter, Ron Morris, who held a record height for U.S. high schoolers in the pole vault, using a bamboo pole. My attendance at UCLA reinforced my admiration of athletes when I could cheer in the stadium for the then stunning UCLA football team and later the magical basketball team that university possessed during my early teaching years. I still try to view, on a small screen, the UCLA–USC yearly football rivalry, even though the results do not always make me as happy as they used to.
Now, no longer near UCLA and Idaho, I have expanded my fandom to new teams and love to watch tennis, along with other sports like basketball. I have found a team or particular athletes to cheer on and joy when I can learn new ways to appreciate the efforts of my surrogate athletes.
When I recently visited both my biological father’s and my biological mother’s families, I was delighted to be able to share an interest in the professional basketball team for Oklahoma City, and now have become a “Thunder” fan. Watching them brightened some of the occasions as we newly found relatives relaxed and enjoyed being together: I appreciated how we were connecting in a different way than I expected; OKC eventually won this year’s NBA championship.
I think the additional joy that I receive as a non-athlete is watching the new batch of highly dedicated and talented athletes. I welcome the delight of admiring, rooting for, and encouraging these hardworking and intense athletes, all possessing enviable talents in their sports, unlike the young Burbank girl teased for her skinniness and clumsy physical efforts.
At this time in life, I can be grateful for the varied other kinds of skills I have acquired with admiration for these talented athletes. Plus, rooting is simply fun. RAH!
