So, what sport did you play at school?
The question brought back a time when an enthusiastic, awkward, slightly gangly girl with legs like sticks-with-a-ball-in-the-middle would hang out at the softball and basketball courts (netball was then called basketball), desperate to get in the team.
I never understood why my major sporting skill of those years became cutting up oranges at half time. Obviously the girls who got into these coveted teams were at high risk of contracting scurvy. I would sit on the sidelines, cutting up the oranges, desperate for someone to fall over and for me to take up the position and potentially win the game.
I decided not to mention these sports to the young man asking the question. Instead I mentioned tennis, then remembered that this was more a family sport, played to please my parents rather than hone any real skill. I did play on the wrong side of Milton Road and most of my team members were about three grades below me (we were ranked on ability, not age). Let’s face it, playing tennis was a somewhat humiliating experience.
And then the sporting light came on. My sport, I told this young man, was fast walking. Yes, that’s what I did best on sports day. I fast walked, bloomers on, bottom wriggling, feet never leaving the ground. I was quite proud to admit that I was relatively good at that and my appearance on the track attracted quite a bit of support (and considerable laughs) from my successful softball playing friends.
The young man laughed. “You mean to tell me,” he said, “that at a school that had no choir and no band, there was a fast walking team?”
I liked the idea that he called it a “team”, so I didn’t correct him that this was an individual sport. Instead I added to the flavour of my elevated sporting status by telling him that on sports day, I also made it to the tunnel ball team. Another laugh. Clearly the skill of throwing a ball down a tunnel of legs and running (fast) to the front of the team, ball held high, was not high on his sporting must-do list.
He wanted a demonstration of my fast walking skills, and I am pleased to admit that I made at least four steps before my back started to twinge. And when aren’t we required to walk quickly throughout our lives? Some sporting skills are for life.
- Linda Muller
