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How about "the sport that got away"... Earlier I wrote about my "Sophie's choice" of sports in high school, wondering what may have been if I ran track instead of playing tennis. Finally I did run track after quitting the tennis team junior year, but I'm afraid I never tried the one event I was born for...
When I joined track I started with hurdles because the coach thought my long legs would be suited for it, and I also did high jump because 1) my friend was a high-jumper, and 2) a very tall and pretty girl did high jump, too. :) Even though my vertical leap was probably strong enough for me to clear 6'6", I never actually cleared more than 5'4" because my form stunk.
Early in the season I strained a hip flexor that prevented me from running hurdles so I moved to the distance events, finding that I most enjoyed the 400m and 800m races. By the end of senior year I was a decent 400m runner - my PR was 60 seconds. My dad watched one of my last track meets and afterwards he was reminiscing about his days as a high school track star, where he set (and still holds, I believe) the long jump record for his high school at something over 20 feet!
After the season one weekend I jogged from my house to school (about 4 miles), noticed the long jump pit and thought, hey, I should try this. I sprinted down the runway and took off - it felt good! Stepping off the distance, I estimated that I soared 17 feet! The best guys on my track team were jumping 17-18 feet, the state champ was doing 24', and this was just my first attempt. As it were, it was also my last.
Alas, what could've been? Had I started long jumping right off the bat, I might have been winning a few meets and who knows, perhaps I could've competed at the state championships just like my dad had done. Maybe I could've topped his "family record", too! With my dad's genes, was I born for long jump? I guess I'll never know, but clearly I let the opportunity get away.
A trophy. I was 14 years old and had won "most improved player of the year". It altered the course of my athletic career forever...
In 8th grade I participated in three sports: baseball, track, and tennis.
Baseball
I had played baseball since 2nd grade and enjoyed it, but was never great at it. This was partly due to poor eyesight because once I got glasses in 7th grade, my hitting instantly went from horrible to decent. I had no power but good plate discipline, culminating in an 8th grade season where I batted .670 with a .750 on-base percentage but just one extra-base hit (a bloop double). My coach batted me at the bottom of the lineup despite my stats (I was the only one who kept stats, anyway, being a nerd) because he never realized how effective I was. I tried to explain to him that my singles were almost as good as doubles because being the fastest runner on the team, I stole 2nd base every time and often 3rd base, too, without getting caught. He was a great coach and he liked me, but didn't appreciate a hitter without power.
Track
Even though I generally liked running, I never tried track and field until 8th grade. Being a late bloomer I wasn't a standout by any means, but I was still pretty good. I ran mostly distances of 100m-400m and my highlight was running the first leg of our championship-winning 4x100 relay, keeping pace with other team's fastest runners. It was a bit frustrating that I wasn't good enough to win any races on my own, but a few of my friends were on the track team and the camaraderie was outstanding. That was some of the most fun in a sport I'd ever experienced.
Tennis
I started taking lessons in 7th grade at a local athletic club in the beginner's group. Non-beginners, my best friend among them, played in class-type practice sessions ranked by ability, "Group 3" being the worst and "Group 1" being the best. My friend had been playing for several years and finally got promoted from Group 3 to Group 2 and was proud of it. Apparently I took quite well to the sport because after half a year in the beginner's group the coaches jumped me straight into Group 2, making my friend a bit envious. And for that I won a little trophy as the club's most improved player of 1990.
Entering high school the following year, I was faced with a mild version of Sophie's Choice: all three of my sports took place in the same season, forcing me to choose only one that I could continue pursuing. I enjoyed all three sports immensely - the drama of baseball, the excitement of track, the intensity of tennis - and because of that trophy, I chose tennis.
Tennis was the only sport where I felt that my achievements were recognized, a feeling given to me simply by that trophy. I never was awarded "most improved hitter" when I got glasses or a "most promising runner" when I held my own in the relay. It's kinda sad that such praise was so important to me, but that's who I was back then.
The epilogue here is that I played tennis for just three more years, making varsity as a sophomore on a top-ranked team but quitting in my junior year after becoming exasperated with a holier-than-thou coach and teammates who were more concerned with being better than each other than actually winning meets against other schools. Luckily for my parents' wallet it only took one expensive broken racquet to realize the error of my choice. :)
I never played baseball again, but I did play in a rec softball game between the two 11th grade chemistry classes where I happened to have a great day outplaying everyone including a handful varsity baseball players in chemistry class. The chemistry teacher was also a baseball coach and asked me several times "Why aren't you playing baseball?" Sometimes I wondered that myself but...
After quitting tennis I joined the track team because my good friend Jamey ran track. I went from being the best runner on the tennis team to the worst runner on the track team; however, I was setting PRs (personal records) every race I ran. By senior year I was an average runner yet still PR-ing every race, prompting my track coach to give me one of the best compliments I ever received in high school: "Someday you'll be winning master's races."
Ironic, isn't it? I chose tennis because of the accolades it gave me, but never found any respect in the sport again while the two sports I had cast off ultimately gave me the recognition that I craved. Nowadays I'm an active softball player and distance runner, but I haven't touched a tennis racquet since college. I guess I should've followed my own heart rather than the mouths of other people, or at least the words they etch onto little trophies.