Niyah Singleton

Suited up and ready to shoot an airball!

  After many years of trying different sports, I’ve come to a realization, I suck at them all. I’ve never really been that into sports, I’d rather join a club or simply go home after school, unfortunately, my dad requires me to do a sport every year to make me more social or for some other unknown reason. Almost every year I choose a new one because I didn’t particularly enjoy the previous ones or I thought that I might be a natural at soccer and that I just haven’t tried it so no one would know of my undiscovered talent. It’s come to a point where I believe there is no undiscovered talent.

    The first sport I remember doing was cross country.

   I actually have no complaints about this sport. I joined this sport because one of my friends had convinced me to do it with her so she wouldn’t be lonely. It wasn’t too terrible and I was actually finishing in good places like 3rd and 4th, however, that was in 6th grade the next time I would attempt to do cross country would be this year going into 11th grade. I started going to the summer practices to get into shape and things were actually going well for where I was at activity-wise. I forced my friend Priya to join me so I could have my best friend running with me and keep me company. She made the long runs enjoyable; unfortunately running was just not for her and she quit. After that, the long runs felt like they would never end and I soon followed in her footsteps.

   On the other hand, I have many complaints about basketball. In 7th grade, I went to tryouts just because I was curious to see if I could make the team. This was a huge mistake. I had absolutely no basketball knowledge, so shockingly I made the team. I thought this was a blessing in disguise, however, it was the complete opposite. The very first game was home and my whole family came to support me and watch me play. I knew things were gonna be bad when my jersey didn’t even fit my muscular figure. The game started and I was so lost on the court I had no idea what to do. I was just dribbling wherever and whenever I could and then I heard my dad from the stand start yelling at me “SHOOT ANNIE SHOOT!!” he said.

   I had an out-of-body experience and envisioned myself shooting a three-pointer, I bent my knees, literally closed my eyes, and shot. I heard commotion in the crowd so I excitedly opened my eyes thinking I made it. My ball was stuck in the support beams behind the backboard. They tried getting it out for 5 minutes but had no success. They ultimately got a new ball and I was forced to look at my failed shot for the remainder of the game. After that game, my dad bought me a pair of gorgeous Kyrie 6s and told me if I was going to play badly I at least needed to look good doing it.

   I remember running wasn’t so bad during cross country so I decided to do track in 8th grade, however, I was done doing long distance and only wanted to sprint. I wasn’t the fastest but I was okay with that since there were a lot of people and different heats. The main events I did were the long jump, 200m and 400m. I was at peace with track and thought it might be the main sport I would do. That all changed on April 27th, 2021. We were on the bus five minutes away from the meet, and Mr. Klingeman opened his mouth “We need someone to run the 3200m.” He said. I remember thinking that there was no way I was going to do that, ironically it came down to me and my friend Anya.  When he approached us she said, “Oh Annemarie has done cross country before she can do it!” she said. She was so wrong for saying that I wanted to die. After bargaining with coach Klingeman I was voluntold to do the two miles, he reassured me that I didn’t have to win it and that I just had to finish it so the team would get the points we needed.

   The announcers called the 3200m people to check in and within a few minutes, I was on the track waiting for the gun to start the race. POW! The race started and I was ready. I had been mentally preparing myself for almost the entirety of the meeting. I started out steady and pacing myself behind some of the runners after lap one. I was feeling fairly confident then came lap three. I somehow was already getting double-lapped and wanted to die. Around the fourth lap, my slow jog had turned into a complete walk. So that’s what I did. I kept walking and walking.  On my fifth lap, most of the other runners had already finished the race, not me though. I started to pick up the pace and started feeling a sharp stab in my stomach.

   It hurt so much to run and all the onlookers felt pathetic for me. I remember seeing everyone lined along the track shouting words of encouragement telling me I got this and that I was almost done. I tried running with no results. A combination of pain and embarrassment made me start to cry. That’s when I completely gave up and started walking. Almost five minutes after the other runner finished I was 100m away from the finish line and the crowd went crazy. They kept yelling “WOOO GO ANNEMARIE!” which was immediately followed by a thousand “you did so well!”, I just wanted to sock them in the face, my finish time was a little over seventeen minutes so why were they lying? We ended up winning the meet and I got a Hershey’s cookies and cream bar with a bottle of sweet tea from Mr. Klingeman for the emotional damage I had to endure. It was a terrible experience to live through, but now it’s a funny story we can joke about.  

   Then there was soccer. It wasn’t that bad and I had some good friends on the team that made it fun. However, I had no idea and I still don’t know how to play soccer. The positions are so confusing to me and I can never keep up. I tried out because my dad told me that I probably couldn’t make the soccer team and I took that as a challenge. Sure it was a freshman team but a team is a team and I made it.

   One of my core memories from that season is a day at practice that I’ll never forget, and it’s not because it was an amazing spectacular day, it’s because I was the victim of an attempted murder and now I spend every day plotting my revenge. It was a regular day at practice and coach John had split us up into two different teams for drills. My team and I had to wear these bright stinky neon pennies and to top it off I had to fight against a sophomore with a bigger body frame than me. The drill was fairly simple; it was a one-on-one scenario where someone was trying to take the ball away and the other person tried to get it past them.

   Only one drill took place at a time for the rest of the team to be able to watch us and learn it was finally my turn and I was staring at my opponent scared to even move. The whistle blew and I was ready, I didn’t have to defend the ball and was just supposed to take it from her so I knew I would live. I tried to visibly make an effort but really just tried avoiding her completely. “BANG” I didn’t even have time to process what was happening. I just remember snapping out of it and falling with my feet in the air and landing on my gluteus maximus and without my pink penny. 

 Laughter. That’s all I remember hearing. I still wasn’t sure of what happened so I asked my friend what it looked like. “You were body slammed and went flying, you fell like a cartoon character…” First of all, there was no use for that amount of force in the first place. She wasn’t even on offense, and I’m convinced she wanted to kill me. Nonetheless, that’s all I needed to hear to know that soccer was not the sport for me.

   Last but not least there was sideline cheer, which I had absolutely no desire to do. The only reason I did this was because of my stepsister; she had begged me to go to tryouts with her so that she wouldn’t be alone. Miraculously I made it and my sister forced me to stay in it with her. I kid you not, not even a week later my stepsister quit. Obviously, I jumped at this chance to get out of it, but my dad had other plans, “The Vargases are not quitters Annemarie,” he said. “It’ll be fun.” 

   He lied. I’m going to keep this very brief and short. I have no idea how to do a handstand or a cartwheel and I’m not even close to having my splits. Now just imagine me being required to do all of these in front of crowds at games. Need I say more? However I’m extremely grateful for staying on the team since it’s where I met my best friend Priya, and we’ve been inseparable ever since–still not the sport for me though.

I know I complained a lot about all of these sports but none of them were completely bad. They all really helped me come out of my shell, meet amazing people, create new memories and unfortunately humbled me. After careful consideration I’ve determined that I am not a child athlete prodigy; However, I’ll never know since I haven’t tried rugby… yet.