Force of Will

A few weeks ago NotKieran wrote an entry entitled Will and Power and Addendum: Force of will and it got me thinking about back when I was in High School I was playing soccer and I hate to be racist, but there were three Hispanic children in my gym class and they were ALWAYS on the same team and they were damned good at soccer. Really damned good, and they played dirty. I, being very overweight and the opposite of athletic sucked at soccer.  We played soccer every Friday and through the whole week the other team would harass us (me) but when we got on the field my mind was clear of everything, I didn’t care that I had no skill at the sport.  There was no thought of winning, I knew I couldn’t win, I knew they had more skill than I did, but I wasn’t going to let them just win.  I would make them remember the day that they faced me on the field.  I ran until my lungs burned, kicking, getting shoved, kicked in the face, knocked to the ground and trampled, but I was always back on my feet in an instant.

I was always right there in the thick of it, playing as if my life depended on it, with no thought of the score, And I remember the first and only time I scored a goal, it was the fifth game of the year and they’d learned that when i got the ball I had to be taken out.  But, there were the three of them versus me.  Their feet were fast, and many, kicking with skill, all I had was blind fury.  They weren’t going to take it from me, but they did, Fidel (yes I remember their names) hooked my ankle and knocked me on my face, sending my glasses flying off and then my chin hit the ground, I bit my tongue and lip and I was bleeding.  They had the ball, I stood up and sprinted as fast as i could, hooking my foot under the ball and scooping it hurling it into the air as high as I could.

I’d seen it in soccer shows and movies, and on TV, but I knew I was going to miss and hurt myself, but I did it anyway.  I jumped as high as I could and flipped all my weight and kicked.  My face hit the ground, the side of my head, and someone ran, kicking my face and cutting my cheek and giving me a black eye.  But, I’ll be damned, the ball went into the net.  I scored a point, one of only two points scored by us that game.

After going to the nurses office I went back for the end of the game and in the locker rooms the three Hispanic kids Fidel, Jose, and Ricky (I think his name was actually Ricardo), came over, slapped me on the back, shook my hand, looked me in the eye and said something to me in Spanish.  Fidel, who actually spoke English told me that he said that Jose and Ricky hadn’t seen a "whitey" with as much vigor…or…ambition on the soccer field.  The next week while picking teams, I was on their team.

Although not what NotKieran was talking about, I understand it now in remembering it.  It wasn’t that I was going to win, it wasn’t that I was better than them, or that I was every going to be better than them, but I wasn’t going to just let them win because they were better than me.  I was going to do everything I could to impede them, everything I could to make it hard for them to win, to maybe just keep them from winning for just enough time to tire them out.  But, damn it, I wasn’t going to be useless, hopeless, and ineffectual.  I was going to be the most fierce and determined amateur they were going to meet, they were going to respect me and I was going to win their honor.

And I did.  And I think it was probably one of the most accomplished moments of my life.

–RK