Why I am not in the Olympics

I was better at chess than I was at athletics, though I was not all that good at chess, either.

Gym class terrified me. Every bit of it: climbing ropes, doing burpees and bent-arm hangs, "spotting" people while they were on the pommel horse or the balance beam. (I'd just hang around nervously, wondering what exactly it was I was supposed to spot, and hoping like mad that no one would fall.)

Even worse was team sports. Apparently we were supposed to spring from the womb understanding the rules to things like Volleyball and Baseball, and so no gym teacher ever took the time to explain how to play. They'd just round us up from time to time and march us out to the ballfield or the volleyball court and turn us loose. The other kids--confident, competitive, strong, sprung from the womb knowing the rules--would capably form into teams, and assign positions, and start batting balls around or shagging flies or spiking the ball over the net, and I would slink off to the side and try to hide. I did not speak their language. I did not have any idea what they were doing. If we were playing baseball, I would go far beyond the outfield, sink into the grass, and make daisy chains.  

I was a puny kid, short, with stick arms, and glasses, and I never found it possible to learn any physical thing unless someone stood right by my side and showed me, step by step, what I was supposed to do.  I could not learn if they faced me; I would get left and right mixed up. They needed to stand next to me and demonstrate, like someone teaching a pony to dance.

As you can imagine, in fifth grade gym class, there was no one available to do this.  

I did not understand the rules of baseball, basketball, or volleyball. The only team sport I excelled at was dodge ball, and that tells you something: I was very good at staying out of the way.

Over time, I devised a system, which my classmates came to understand in that tacit, samizdat way that kids communicate; I stayed out of their way, and they made no demands of me, and everyone was happy.  Until, of course, a teacher interfered.

I remember in fifth grade a particularly raucous volleyball game; the class was big, and the teams had something like 15 or 16 kids per side. It was easy to hide. I had tried a few times to hit the ball over the net, but I had no arm strength whatsoever and every time I slapped the ball it would rise about an inch or two into the air and then--bloop--fall to the floor. So after that whenever the ball came anywhere near me I'd race in the other direction, clearing a space on the court for some stronger teammate to bat it back. As we rotated positions, if I ever found myself in the position of server, I'd simply step over one more spot, allowing the next kid to serve. 

But this particular game was, as I said, raucous, with a lot of arguing, and then kids started spiking the ball, which was illegal in fifth grade ("Someone could lose an eye!"), and the teacher stepped in to seize control.  He took the ball away. He made everyone line up nicely. And then he said, "You--here, you serve." And to my utter horror--and to the horror of all my teammates--he tossed the ball to me.

Oh god. 

Oh god oh god oh god.

I took my place in the far back corner. My teammates glared at me. Don't screw it up, Hertzel! they all said with their fierce eyes. I can still picture the whole thing, stopped in time and preserved in my memory--the shiny wooden gymnasium floor, the high ceiling that deadened our shrieks, the catwalk around the second floor, that faraway volleyball net, so high and so out of reach. And 30 or 35 fifth graders staring at me, silent, poised to spring.

I held the ball in my left hand. I drew my right arm back, to get momentum. I took a deep breath. And then I swung my arm forward swiftly, purposefully, gave the ball a little toss with my left hand as I thwacked it hard with my right hand. The ball rose an inch or two and then --bloop--it fell to the floor. Of course it did. There had been no reason to think that there could have been any other outcome.

My teammates erupted in screams of derision. The opposing side looked scornful and amused. The palm of my hand stung from the impact and began to turn red. I glanced at the gym teacher, who gave me a look of disgust mixed with pity and then looked away.  I stepped over one spot and the next kid moved into the servers box, and the game went on.

I think everyone who watches the Olympics gets a little of that can-do Olympic spirit. I could do that, we think, sprawled on our couches with the remote in our hand. Or I could have, if someone had just taught me. (Stood at my side and demonstrated, as though they were teaching a pony to dance.) I watch, and I think this, too. Maybe not the fast swimming, or the scary diving, or the gravity defying tumbling routines. But volleyball? Yeah. I could have learned volleyball, if someone had taken the time to teach me. I still could, I think. And maybe I will. Maybe I will start with the serve.