The agony of defeat or the agony of victory
So I attended my 7th grade sister's volleyball game. I was kind of looking forward to seeing the Fish play since she was so determined to make B team. Traditionally, there are three levels to the middle school volleyball, A team comprised of 8th graders, B team comprised of 7th graders, and C team, comprised of the children who don't even get picked for kickball, let alone shouldn't even be near a field of competition for fear of injuring themselves or others. (And trust me, I've had to coach some of these daisy pickers over the years. I know what the coaching staff is dealing with. Dad looked at one of the names, a former ballplayer of ours, and asked if there was an E team.)Thankfully Fish, did make B team. She is the first one to come off the bench for the first 6 girl rotation. There are only 190479287923 girls on B team. Unfortunately, there is quite a talent dropoff from the first 8 girls to the next however many are left. Fish has a cousin Bike Wrecka Becka, who is 18 days younger than her, in the same grade. So Becka's older brother Perm came to watch. Perm and I just happen to be the only male grandchildren on that side of the family. Perm and I cheered like only older brother's can. So we may have looked slightly retarded stomping our feet when our team made an ace. That's what older brother's are for, to look like idiots at sporting events. (I've got to state that whoever decided to make middle school volleyball rally scoring should indeed receive sainthood. I'm pretty sure that if it was still traditionally service point scoring, the C game would still be going on.) Volleyball in 7th grade consists of just trying to get the ball back over the net. Dad and I noted that the team that gets their serves over the net will most likely win.On a different note, I had forgotten or had blocked out exactly how much noise 12-14 year old girls can make, especially while doing the decades-old, grate-on-your-ears cheers that middle school volleyball teams do while in matches. Too bad the team we played was full of idiots because normal girls can memorize their cheers. These fools had their cheers written down on pieces of paper because they weren't smart enough to memorize them. There were a couple of times when Perm and I exchanged the "If I only had a handgun" look. Mass casualities would have ensued, if only Kansas had a carry concealed law.
Twice Perm and I caught our sisters looking semi-embarassed with our antics. I explained to Fish that we were only doing our older brother duties by trying to get into the match. Perm and I made a pact to get thrown out of one of Becka's basketball games in high school.
I'm really sick of how tall Fish and Beck are getting. Beck is 5-7 and Fish is a healthy 5-5 and strong as an ox. Both are still about two months away from their 13th birthdays. I think my uncle had it right and Beck will be as tall if not taller than I at my respectable 6-0 when it's all said and done. Who knows where the Fish will end up?
Now on to my moral dilemma for the day. Fish has a tourney this weekend. It starts at 9 a.m. I'm thinking that I can swing the first couple of matches and then slip away to Doug's for the kickoff of the Huskers at 11 a.m. Yes, I'm preempting my sister's volleyball for a football game. So I'm a shitty brother. But I did find a replacement for myself, that being my other sister Mindy. If Mindy can make the matches I miss, then it's all gravy and Fish is never the wiser. (Did I mention Doug's got a 51 or 52 inch television?) She's got another tourney coming up anyways. It's all justified, I think.
Damn I'm glad she's on B team.
posted by Rusty @ 10:07 PM
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