[Originally posted back on March 5th, 2006]
I’d like to take a moment to thank The Powers That Be for making me a sturdy person.
I was playing soccer this afternoon and collided with someone. More specifically, my kneecap collided with his. You could hear the *CRACK* from across the field (at least I assume so—given that I was involved in the accident, I only know it was loud). He fell to the turf. I stayed upright, watching the guy hold his knee and roll around in pain. He needed help getting off the field. I stood around and waited for the game to start up again.
I’m not that big—about 195 pounds—but I’ve yet to run into or get kicked by someone on a soccer field and not jump right back up again. Conversely, I’ve left several opposing players on the ground who… well, they didn’t get right back up again. And I’m not even a thug anymore. I’m trying to develop a little finesse, learning how to maneuver and dribble the ball around people instead of barreling into them. If you flash back about a decade, I didn’t bother with that crap—I played defense and I could rumble with the best of them.
My favorite memory happened when I was about 16. We were playing in a tournament against the host team. They had a forward who… let’s just say he didn’t appreciate the art of defensive thuggery. As I kept pressuring him, he got more and more pissed off. It eventually came to a head when our arms got linked together at the elbow. Instead of letting go and running towards the ball, he tried pulling through my arm. Well, that was just plain silly—I kept my arm locked and pulled back. Neither of us let go and after a few more tugs, he spun around and punched me in the throat.
Why is that my favorite memory? A couple reasons:
1) That was the first time I was directly responsible for someone getting a red card and thus kicked out of a game.
2) It was one of my best acting gigs ever. After he hit me, I stumbled backwards, grabbed my throat and bent over at the waist (that way, no one could see me smiling as the linesman went to tell the center referee what happened).
3) The final score was 1-1, but we played them again for the championship. Because of the red card, he had to sit out and watch from the sidelines as we won 3-1.
That doesn’t make me a bad person, does it? Enjoying the fact that I took advantage of his frustration? I mean, just because I was bumping him around doesn’t mean he’s allowed to take a swing at me. Think about Star Wars—Greedo and Han Solo are facing off outside the bar, talking smack until Greedo whips out his gun and shoots first. Then the ref runs up and gives him a red card. Okay, maybe it didn’t happen quite like that, but give a man a degree of poetic license here!
But the reason I mention it is because I’m becoming a little less “hands-on” while playing soccer now, trying to dance around Greedo and keeping the gun in its holster. It’s worked to a degree—I haven’t been punched in the throat in over ten years—but sometimes people don’t appreciate the effort I’m making. Sometimes they play really aggressively and someone’s going to get victimized. When that happens… sometimes you gotta cap ‘em. Pun intended.
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The reason I decided to repost this now is because while I’ve continued playing soccer and continued enjoying it, I’ve continued injuring opposing players from time to time as well. I don’t think the fact that I’ve gained maybe 10 pounds in the last two years has anything to do with it—I think I just kick really hard and people sometimes get in the way.
It happened again on Sunday. This time, the victim was a lanky Jewish guy (or someone who beat up a Jewish guy and swiped his little skullcap). The ball was bouncing in front of the goal, so I kicked at it as hard as I could. Immediately after making contact with the ball, the spikes on my cleats made contact with his leg. He wasn’t happy. He probably should have been—I was responsible for two of his teammates taking a wicked blast to the crotch, too.
Surprisingly, no one ended up on the turf crying during the game. Not so surprisingly, they started ducking out of the way when I was about to kick the ball up the field. Greedo would have been disappointed, but given that he went down after a quick shot to the gut, maybe the hour-long game gave them more time to realize that was a bad idea.
