I am a player for the Arkansas Wildcats Professional Womens Football Team. My thoughts and opinions are my own and in no way reflect the opinion or actions of the Arkansas Wildcats.
9 months ago was the beginning of a journey. It was a hot hot hot Arkansas Saturday in the middle of July. First, let me back up a bit and start at the true beginning. I had dabbled in football during college and I found that practices were some of my favorite times ever, but the fear of not being good enough or failing my team when they needed me most kept me full of reasons why not to go. I told everyone I quit simply because I had missed too much practice when I went to rebuild after Katrina. The nobility of the 'sacrifice' kept anyone from actually asking. Since then, for years now, I've regretted giving up since then.
Flash forward years later and there was a new football team in Arkansas. I couldn't wait to try out. That was, until the tryout day showed itself and I found myself piled under all those old fears again. I'm bigger now, way bigger. I am out of shape in every way possible. So I didn't go last year. I solidified my own assessment of myself as someone that would run and hide when it came down to it.
And thus began my slow death. At least that's how I saw it. Let me first preface this with saying that I am dramatic. In my own mind, I was past my prime (already 26!), I was massively over weight, depressed on a constant basis and accepting of the idea that I would die young and fat.
Something had to change or I would die. So I started trying. I got a roommate that was reminding me there was a world outside of my own imagination and he constantly encouraged me to venture into that world. It was helping. I was starting to open myself up to people again. A coworker knew I had played football before and he sent me a forum post from my company.
That post was from a woman we will call Flash. It stated that there was a tryout for the Arkansas Wildcats on Saturday at noon. To my own shock and amazement, I went. That practice was the most brutal experience of my life. It was hot, not a cloud in the sky. We started with stretches and I was awful at them. When we got to the jumping jacks, I couldn't even do 10. I was out of breath and in pain before warm ups, but I wouldn't give up. If I had gotten myself out there, I was past the point of chickening out.
When the chills started, this fantastic woman named Hammer made me go sit in her SUV. I started calling it the N00b incubator. All of us took a turn in there. I spent most of practice in it, willing away the impending heat stroke. Half of me wanted to keep going and the other half of me wanted to slink into my car and disappear, once again to fail miserably. I told that to Ki who was laying the back groaning.
"Do you think they will let us be on the team since we are in here?" I asked, daring to give words to my fears.
"At this point, I don't really care." She responded.
"I feel like crawling to my car and driving home. I feel like giving up." I managed to say it without even a catch in my voice. She then said the words that changed me.
"I think all of us feel like that. Its a natural feeling."
In 12 words, she pulled me out of the mind trap that said I was alone and I always would be and she opened my eyes to the idea that I wasn't all that different after all. So I stayed and once the chills stopped, I went back to practice. I gave it everything I had, taking some time to go rest up in that blissfully cool SUV.
A week later, I got a phone call from a man asking if I wanted to be a Wildcat. I did want to be a Wildcat. I wanted friends. I wanted to be able to move with the ease the other girls did. I wanted to do 50 million push ups like QB did. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to belong and for once, I had the courage to speak up and say so.
