I didn’t like sports. The rough and tumble boys of Hendersonville had been raised on sports, and intimately knew the games they played. I knew not even the most basic skills of the games, nor did I know the rules. Because of this, I was a liability to whichever team had the misfortune of having me on it. I earned the ridicule and scorn of the other boys through my uselessness.

The school wanted boys to play sports as an activity in which every child got to participate, so everyone would get a chance to play, get exercise, and have fun. The kids’ idea of sports was to compete and win. The differing philosophies contrasted as starkly as Abraham Maslow and Thomas Hobbes. The best athletes among the boys dominated physical education, because they had the desire to win, and knew the games (most would play them on the school’s organized, competitive teams). As silly as it may sound now, looking back, these boys wanted to win everything, even games between 15-player baseball teams. A rather serious problem was these alpha-athletes were saddled with dead weight in the form of other boys like me who were non-competitive, didn’t know the games, and had poor motor skills. Many times, the boys would pick teams, and I was always in that pool of the handful of rejects neither team wanted. Sometimes I would get picked before others because they suspected I wouldn’t do anything anyway, making me more valuable than dead weight which tried to participate and did poorly.

At the time of junior high, when I was in adolescence and trying to figure out who I was and where I belonged in the world, the boys around me sent me a strong and unmistakable message that I didn’t belong with them. I was a creative, artistic dreamer who was trapped in an flabby offensive guard’s body. The boys had no use for me because I was a dead weight on their teams, and the girls didn’t like me because I was chubby, callow, and not much of a catch. That did not leave much of a place for me in life, other than reading books.

I was clever in my own way, and while I didn’t have the means (nor the desire) to learn the skills of the games, I learned to invent coping strategies. In games like baseball, where long lines of boys waited their turn to bat (you haven’t played baseball until you’ve played it with 15 or more people on a team!), when we came in off of the field to line up in the “batting order”, I simply went to the back of the line every time. I never had to bat. I had success with this, to an extent, because it worked: no one else on the team wanted me to bat, and for the most part the coaches didn’t pay any attention to who was batting, so everyone was happy. In another way, though, this hurt. The very best I could offer was not to participate, which helped reinforce that I did not belong in this school – in this human race – with these people. They certainly didn’t want me there. I never did find a place where I was wanted.

I dominate this recollection with baseball, and cap it with a baseball anecdote, but I was terrible in all sports. Curiously, I did fairly well in tag football, because I could be an offensive or defensive lineman, and meaningfully contribute as a blocker by standing there and doing nothing. I don’t think that was quite the self-esteem boost the educational establishment had in mind. (In my entire school career, I caught one pass for about three yards. One day, a coach virtually ordered the kids under heavy duress to spread the ball around and let everyone have a reception on one play.) Basketball was hopeless, because I couldn’t run very well and didn’t know the rules. One day at Asheville Junior High in the 9^th grade, the coach took us to the gym, divided us into teams, gave each team a basketball, and everyone started spontaneously playing except me. I stood there watching the people I had been divided up with, wondering who among them was even on my team. I didn’t know which players were on my team, the rules, what to do, or anything. I just stood there. The coach saw this and came up to me and asked me what was the matter, if I didn’t “like” basketball. I have no idea what I said to him, I was too busy trying not to cry: that was the most humiliating day of my life. I couldn’t explain it to him. I could either start crying, get angry and lash out at him, or do nothing; I just stood there. I watched the others play, isolated from them, and no one even noticed or cared. No one offered to teach me how to play, or even explain the rules to me. I wasn’t worth wasting the time on, since these kids wanted me to have no place among them.

The fact that I was inept at sports is interesting, because I was always an active child – but not athletic, and there’s a big difference. I rode my bicycle, and shot baskets in the hoop over the garage (although the ground was gravel and I couldn’t do anything else that required a solid surface to bounce the ball on). All of these activities had nothing to do with athletics. I was overweight, could not run fast, and had no coordination. I learned in elementary school that I had “poor motor skills”, but I didn’t know what that meant. When I found out it meant I was not athletic, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. My poor motor skills went to the back of the batting order every time, and no one noticed.

One day, though, I could no longer hide. We were in a smaller group than usual for some reason playing baseball, and the coach was watching us carefully. Any time in the past I had had the misfortune to come to bat, I swung hard and tried not to hit the ball, a curious approach to hitting that required almost as much coordination to intentionally miss as it would to actually hit the ball, and did so because the last thing I wanted to do was get on base. I wouldn’t have a clue what to do once I was there, since I didn’t know the rules and techniques of the game. I struck out and went back to the back of the line again. But this time the coach watched me as I unavoidably came to bat without the ability to go to the back of the line. I had to take my turn. He noticed I batted right-handed, with my left hand above the right on the bat handle, which is called hitting “cross-handed”. He began right there on the spot to give me a batting lesson; hands, feet, grip, eye on the ball.

He said, there comes a time in every boy’s life when he learns to bat. I remember those words clearly. I remember then thinking why had I never learned this before, and why had I never had anyone to teach me, and not had this and not have had that and I was confused and the sun was in my eyes. I remember only being embarrassed and wanting him to leave me alone. I knew I was a terrible hitter, everyone on the field knew I was a terrible hitter, so why was he wasting his time and humiliating me in front of all these other students, and taking time out of their game to show me how to do something I’d never be any good at?

Why? Because growing up is a crucible, and in the heat I would be tested so that I would learn what I was made of, one batting lesson at a time. I’d learn what I was good at, and what I wasn’t, through my experiences. I’d learn my strengths and weaknesses. I’d know the only place I belonged in this world was alone, by myself, and that no one else had any place for me at all.