Yesterday's post about my friends from ESL got me thinking about other friends of mine from the ESL class. In particular, it reminded me of Shari and Pari. They were sisters from Iran. Shari was a year older than I was, and Pari was a few years younger. Pari was in junior high when I was in high school, and she seemed so little and cute! A curly-haired little moptop. Her sister Shari was beautiful. Long black hair and eyelashes to match. Shari and I decided one year to try out for the varsity badminton team. Not being the athletic type, I nonetheless thought myself good enough at badminton to make the team. My family had a dime-store badminton set, and every summer we'd set up the badminton net in our backyard. So I'd played the game before. Besides, I reasoned, how hard could it be to make the badminton team? It wasn't one of the "cool" sports, like track, or field hockey, or tennis, right? Who else would be interested?
On the morning of the tryouts, I got up at 5:00 am. My mom and I drove to Shari's house to pick her up so that we could get to school at 6:00 am for the tryouts. Yes, we would make the badminton team, we thought. Until we got there. To our surprise, all of the other girls at tryouts were cheerleaders. Needless to say, neither Shari nor I made the team. We were like two misfits who should have known better than to attempt a foray into the world of the popular, athletic, prom-queen types. The badminton team turned out to be, in effect, the cheerleading squad during the off-season. In the fall, they were cheerleaders. In the spring, they were the badminton team.
After being rejected from the badminton team, I ended up joining the varsity archery team instead (yes, there was such a thing). It didn't have a cute little uniform like the badminton team did, but I enjoyed it. And I didn't have to try out for it. Unlike the badminton team, the archery team was accepting of everybody. Why can't society as a whole be like that? I was no Geena Davis, but I had fun. There was no sense of cut-throat competition like you find with other sports. Sure, each team wanted to win. But each target had members of both teams on it during the game. And there was no hostility between them. In fact, it was very sociable. And being a member of a varsity team meant that I received a varsity letter. Yes, someday my as-yet-unborn future children will think their mother was a high school jock!
3 comments:
Being a mere Brit, I've never understood this Varsity letter business. When I was at school (in England and Canada), if you were really good at sport, you got awarded colours, which entitled you to a special tie. So, from the first rugby team, maybe three or four people were given colours.* Is it like that? Or do you just need to be a member of the first team?
All I can think of is John Travolta at the end of Grease.
*At school in Canada, I won debating colours, which was a bit nerdy, but they'd only been awarde about four times in a decade, so there was at least a bit of novelty value about the whole thing.
Anyone who played on a varsity team received a letter (the letter being the first letter in your high school's name). The point of varsity letters is that when you got one, you'd sew it onto your varsity jacket and parade around the school to "impress" people that you're the athletic type. They were really important to the members of the football team, who dated the cheerleaders (who had their own cheerleading jackets!). And if a girl dated a jock with a varsity jacket, he'd give it to her and she'd wear it to show everyone she was dating a jock. Personally, I was never impressed with them. I got my letter for archery and put it away in my dresser drawer, where it still sits today. If I had worn a varsity jacket no one would have believed me, or else I would have had to own up that I was on the varsity archery team (snide comments ensuing, of course).
I wasn't aware of the colors system in British schools. Is the tie that you got different from the usual school ties (having read Harry Potter, thus my only exposure to the school tie tradition)? I thought everyone got a school tie in British schools.
That's cool about your being awarded the debating color award. I guess it's that same kind of nerdy achievement as being on the archery team. Nerd pride!
Not every school. Most private schools have uniforms (including ties), and some state schools, but there's no hard and fast rule. A colours tie is usually a variation on the school tie. If I remember right, my English school tie had red and blue stripes, and the colours tie had thin gold stripes as well. So, like the school tie, only slightly more brash and vulgar.
Post a Comment