I always thought they said being a teenager was supposed to
be fun and carefree, that you were supposed to be doing all these things you
would never forget. It hasn’t seemed like that yet. I’m fifteen, a sophomore in
high school, and honestly, I have yet to do anything worth remembering when I’m
eighty. In all honesty, I have only ever done one thing I can look back fondly
on. It was the time I decided that I was going to actually make my life more
interesting. I decided to join the boys’ soccer team.
At first, it seemed like too big of a risk. So many people
absolutely despised me at my school, mainly because I didn’t fit into any of
their norms. I refused to wear the two styles of clothing they deemed
‘appropriate’ for their world. It was either a preppy jock style, or a redneck
style. I thought that both were incredibly atrocious and always swore against
any form of the options. The other reason they didn’t approve of my existence
was that I chose to live by my own rules and not adhere to anything anyone else
had to say. I believed if you were living your life to please someone else, you
weren’t living your life to its fullest potential. So instead of choosing to
fit in with my peers, I decided to stick out and live by my morals and beliefs.
The first time I saw a poster for tryouts for soccer, I
thought nothing of it, being the farthest thing from athletic at that point in
time. But when they started popping up everywhere, the strangest of places
being inside my locker, I decided it must’ve been fate for me to tryout, so at
3:30 on Wednesday afternoon, I headed over to the elementary school to do just
that. I hadn’t been to the school in ages, seeing as I was fourteen, and you
leave that school when you’re ten or eleven.
When I got there, there were a couple people playing on the
climbing toys, a few playing tetherball, and a few just sitting there chatting.
Everyone snapped to attention when an older guy walked up. He looked too young
to be the coach, but he was definitely at least a junior. His voice was crazy
loud, and he didn’t seem to do anything to hold it back at all. He announced
that he was in fact not the coach, but the assistant coach, and we were to
address him with just as much respect, since he was still in charge. Someone
was stupid enough to actually ask what his name was. I had learnt, in all my
years of watching people play sports, and overhearing practices, you always
address them as coach. Never their first name, never their last name, but just
coach. To my surprise, he actually answered this question plain as day.
“My name is Stuart. Stuart Camp. But if you want my attention for any reason,
just yell Camp, and I’ll probably respond,” he announced not only to the asker,
but to everyone at the tryouts.
The next question came from a nervous voice, two places to
the right of the first one. “If you’re only the assistant coach, who’s the
actual coach?”
I personally thought Camp was gonna punch him for the ‘real coach’ bit, but he
seemed cool about it, responding with, “I am an actual coach, but the head
coach is Ayden Pardo.” The kid who made the actual coach remark literally
winced when Camp annunciated the word actual in his statement.
Instead of asking if we were to address Coach Ayden and the
former or if we were to just say Pardo like with him, I waited for someone else
to ask for me. It didn’t take long, as it was obviously eating away at the
others too. A shy kid I’d seen in some of my classes was the one to voice the
concern of the rest of us. I think his name was Simon or something. He wore
thin glasses and definitely looked some sort of Asian descent. “And exactly how
are we supposed to address the head coach?” he asked, making sure not to sound
too irritated.
“Just call him Coach for now. If he doesn’t like it, oh well, he can retrain
you guys to call him something else or he can just deal. Anyway, we need to
start getting you guys in shape for daily doubles. Let’s start with 3 laps
around the field after you guys go change! Just start running when you’re done,
then go wait for the rest of you at the goal on the left,” Camp stated before
walking over the wrong goal.
Everyone headed into the locker room at the elementary school to change. I was
pretty self conscious at that time, so I changed in the bathroom stall, and
then headed out to do my laps. I was under the impression that this was a warm
up, so I jogged them at a relatively slow pace, that is, until Camp came over
and decided he was going to run behind me and scream at me till I sped up to an
unreasonably fact pace. When I was done with my laps, along with everyone else,
He walked to the front of the group and made an announcement to everyone.
“The skinny one over their demonstrated exactly what you AREN’T going to be
doing at these practices,” he started. “We are here to work HARD. We are here
to go HARD. I will not have ANY lazys here. If you are unwilling to work as
hard as you possibly can at every single practice, leave now. No one will judge
you. No one will look down on you. Nothing. If anyone does, come tell me and
I’ll give them some advice.”
A few people got up and walked off, heading back to the locker room to change,
obviously not ready for 4 practices a week at this intensity. When they were
out of ear shot, Camp continued, “Now that they’re gone, I’ll continue. I won’t
actually push you that hard every day. I only said that to make sure only the
willing and dedicated are here. If you don’t WANT to try your hardest every day,
you shouldn’t be here right now. This team is only for the incredibly
dedicated.”
Right then I really wanted to walk away, seeing how I didn’t really WANT to be
there, I was only there because of the abundance of flyers in my locker.
Thinking back, I was pretty sure they were just dropping the flyers in
everyone’s locker, but no one else ever mentioned it. I managed to stop myself
from walking away and continued listening to Camp.
“Now, Coach isn’t gonna be here till daily doubles, so I’ll
be the one training you for these next few weeks. Every day, you will dress
down and come out here to do your laps at 3:30. If you are not on the track by
3:40, you will be marked as LATE. That will play into affect during Daily
Doubles. DO NOT BE LATE. After your laps, come to the goal. I will have our
schedule for the day posted. Do NOT check before your laps, because if I see
you looking, I will change our schedule for the day AND you will run 23 more
laps.”
Thinking back, I now know he was not serious about the 23 laps, but whenever
someone decided to be a smart a*s and walk over to the schedule before hand, we
never did what it said, and they always had to do more laps. We quickly learnt
to do our laps when he was watching; just to be sure we didn’t have to do extra
laps.
“When we have all met up here and discussed our schedule, we will move on to
ball technique. I don’t care how good you think you are, you can always
practice more. We will go over specifics of exactly what BT we will be working
on after laps. Then we will move on to stamina work. Again, specifics will be
after laps. We will never do the same thing twice in one week, and the order
will always be different as well.”
When he was finished speaking, we all went to grab a ball. Looking at the pile,
I found the perfect ball, it was green and orange, almost perfectly round, and
it wasn’t brand new, or twenty years old. I reached down to pick it up when
Camp kicked it away from me as hard as he could. I shot up into a fully
straight position and just glared at him while asking, “What the hell was that
for?”
The look he gave me after the words left my mouth told me exactly why he’d done
that. This was football, not American football, but real football. No hands
allowed. Camp blew his whistle and everyone turned to look at him.
“Hustle in! I forgot to tell you maggots something!” He yelled, making sure
even the half deaf kids in china could hear him.
People started to slowly walk their way back over to the goal, coming in from
all directions. “I SAID HUSTLE IN!” He screamed again, even louder than before.
“HUSTLE DOES NOT MEAN WALK!”
Everyone at that point grabbed their footballs and ran in as fast as their legs
could carry them. When everyone had arrived in front of us, Camp gave us yet
another lecture. This time, he was discussing hand use during practice.
“Unless I have you playing goalie during scrimmage or drills, hands are a no
go. This is FOOTBALL, not HANDBALL. Now, before you all leave to go back to
your balls, I’m going to have you all introduce yourself to one another, just
so we can call each other around more efficiently. Let’s start with mister rule
breaker over here first.” Camp said, turning to look at me as he finished his
sentence. Apparently I was to start.
“I’m Oliver Lehcar, but I go by Finn,” I stated bluntly, not wanting to be
looked at.
“We need more info than that Finn,” Camp told me. “Where are you from, favorite
thing to do, that stuff. Describe yourself in 10 individual words for me.”
“Ten words. Let’s see. Independent, outspoken, and Honest. Uhm, Ginger.
Creative, passive aggressive. Is that one word or two?”
“I’m gonna go with one,” He responded, wanting me to do the most work, I
assumed.
“Well that’s 6. How about anxious, OCD, musical, and … incoherent?” I finished,
hoping he would let me slide with OCD even though it wasn’t an adjective. He
did, but he still dug deeper.
“Where are you from and what’s your favorite thing to do?” He asked, making
sure I answered every single question he asked.
“I’m from Vero Beach but as is obvious, I go to school here in Sebastian. In my
spare time, I like to …” I trailed off because honestly, what DID I like to do?
I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head and from what I could tell
Camp was getting irritated at me. I quickly finished with, “I like to sing and
play guitar?”
Camp seemed satisfied with that answer, but apparently I was wrong. He
continued with the questions. The next ones were incredibly less substantial,
little details, like if my parents were still together, which they weren’t,
whom I lived with, both, I went back and forth a lot, and who I liked better, I
refused to answer that one. After he was done interregating me, he went through
the rest of the group, not spending anywhere near the amount of time he did on
me. I had a feeling Camp and I were going to not always see eye to eye this
year.
“Okay so depending on how many of you did soccer in eighth
grade, you may remember Devyn Cloud. He was our captain last year, but this
year, we’re thinking of having a co-captain as well, so that spot is up for
grabs to whoever decides to show they’ve got what it takes to help run this
team,” Camp said as an older, but still young kid walked to the front of the
group. I was assuming that was Devyn that Camp had talked about. He was short,
obviously not white, or if he was, he tanned A LOT. He was probably some sort
of native, and he had this face. It was cute, but I am not gay. He’s just,
little kid cute. But he’s older than me, so I can’t really say that.
“I’m going to be watching all of you very closely during
these next few weeks. I will have some say in who co-captian is, if I manage to
keep my spot on the team. There are a lot of people here, full of potential, and
who knows, maybe I won’t have all the ambition I had last year that earned me
spot as captian. Also, whoever gets co-captian this year, has first dibs on
jersey number, and they automatically get captain spot next year if you stay on
the team,” Devyn started saying, hoping to spark interest in at least one of
the boys. Honestly, I didn’t WANT to care, but I couldn’t seem to shake the
feeling that I wanted to impress this kid. It made no sense, I didn’t care
about sports, let alone some haughty junior that was trying to convince some
kid to work ten times harder than he needed to just so he could have someone to
help keep the rest of us under wraps. “If you want to be considered for the
spot, tell Camp before next Wednesday.”
I felt this sudden urge to run up to Camp and tell him that I wanted to be
co-captian, but why would he choose a freshman who’d never played soccer before
on a team? To be one hundred percent honest, he probably wouldn’t if he were
the only one with say. He’d probably just have Devyn be captain and co-captain,
but that would practically eliminate the need of a co-captain. So I kept my
mouth shut and finished the first day of tryouts. Camp worked us through drills
so slowly so everyone could get it down, but I managed to catch on fast, and
had the routine down not even 10 minutes after we started.
Devyn walked over to me, kicking a ball around with his feet. He seemed
surprised that I was already done with the drills. “You weren’t on the youth
team at all were you? If you were, I’m sorry but I honestly don’t recognize you
at all…” He asked, slowly trailing off the last few words. I gave him this look
as if to imply I had no idea what he was on about, so I simply said, “I’ve
never played soccer before,” and continued staring at the ball next to my foot.
I did manage to convince Camp to let me use the ball I wanted in the first
place however, and the ball was nearly perfect for me. The closer I examined
it, the more I realized how flawed it was. But it was those flaws that made it
right for me.
“Well sorry to say this, but you can’t be telling the truth right now. How could
you’ve finished the drills and checked with Camp to be sure you did them right
if you’ve never played before?” Devyn hadn’t been looking at me, I could tell
that much, but I hadn’t been able to tell where he was looking. It was either
off in space, or he was just not paying attention to anything.
“I just tend to catch on to things easily. It’s just like
with guitar. I picked one up at a music store, had never played before, and
with the aid of a book I managed to play Jane Doe by NeverShoutNever within 10
minutes of sitting there. My mom bought me the guitar the minute I finished
playing. I started singing soon after that. I just pick things up and it only
takes me a few minutes to learn something, if I really want to do it,” I
glanced over, hoping he wouldn’t think I was weird because of that.
“That’s really cool. I wish it were that simple for me. I
started soccer when I was 4 and it took me until I was in seventh grade to make
captain. If you stick with this, and you’re just as good under pressure, I’ll definitely
suggest you for co-captain. That is, if you want to be co-captain,” Devyn
glanced up at me with a look of hope in his eyes. Looking back over at the
field where Camp was still helping the …slower people at tryouts, I could tell
Devyn didn’t have much hope for this year’s team. Not many people from the team
last year were here for try outs. I was assuming that they didn’t have to try
out again, but according to Camp, no one’s spot was secure; You had to try out
every year. I decided it would be best for everyone if I was co-captain, so I
told Devyn I’d appreciate his help in convincing Camp and Coach to choose me.
“Well, practice is almost over, so I’m gonna go head back to
Camp and tell him I have a few prospects for co-captain this year,” Devyn
whispered as he shot over to the assistant coach to do just that. I could see
the look of surprise when Camp heard what Devyn had said. Soon, Devyn was
pointing at me and camp had a very confused look on his face, but I noticed him
nodding his head, as if he could see what Devyn was getting at. When Devyn
noticed I was looking over at him and camp, he waved furiously while grinning
ear to ear.
Camp called everyone back together and boomed over the group that he had an
important announcement to make to us, “I’d forgotten to mention a few details.
Right after Daily Doubles, as in two days after, we will go to unity camp, and
we’re going to need some sort of entertainment, so I want to know, how would
you guys like Oliver to play guitar and sing at the camp fire?”
I was stuck aghast when he proposed such an idea! I had never sang in front of
this big of a group before! And what would I sing! Oh god. This would be
horrible if they all said yes. And with my luck, they all said just that, in
unison at that! I was worried no one was going to like my voice, and that they
were gonna all make fun of me afterwards, but by the look on Devyn’s face after
Camp was finished speaking, I knew he was the one behind this evil plan. But by
his eyes, it wasn’t so much evil, instead it was a devious way to get to hear
my skills. I glared at him, but agreed to be the camp fire entertainment for
unity camp if I made it that far. Camp made it known I most likely wasn’t
getting cut from the team. Seems like I was stuck with this.
After the details of unity camp were worked out Camp dismissed us to go get
changed and head out. In other words, practice was over. I headed straight to
the bathroom after grabbing my clothes and hurriedly changed back. When I
walked out of the stall, I managed to bump right into Devyn, who was in nothing
but his boxers. This was not good.
“What were you doing in there? Don’t most people get changed in the locker
room, not the bathroom?” Devyn gave me a questioning glance. This was
definitely not good. I stumbled over my words for a good two minutes before
Devyn caught on, “OH! You’re self conscious in the locker room aren’t you? You did
say you hadn’t done soccer before. Have you ever done any sport?”
“…..n-n-no..” I stammered out, clenching my eyes and mouth shut. I definitely
should not have said that.
“Well
it’s not that big of a deal. Just make sure you don’t let the other guys catch
you changing in here. They’d make it out to be a way bigger deal than it is.”
Devyn glanced over at the clock on the wall and let out an exasperated sigh, “I
have to get going, my mom will be worried sick if I’m not home by 6.”
I watched him walk away, wondering what the hell just happened. Did Devyn Cloud
just tell me being self conscious was okay? Whatever, I didn’t care what he
thought anyway, he was just a stupid junior.
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