In 5th grade basketball, I grabbed a defensive rebound, and immediately tried to put the ball back into the hoop several times, which would have scored for the other team. Luckily, I sucked so bad at shooting that I missed all 4 uncontested attempts from right underneath the basket (I kept getting my own rebound). "No no! Wrong basket!" My parents screamed from the stands. But I couldn't hear them. I was too busy trying to score for the other team.
In 6th grade basketball, I was underneath the backboard when my teammate tried to make a shot. He was also underneath the backboard, because we were all fucking stupid and didn't realize that we should spread out while on offense. Anyway, he throws his shot up really hard, and it hit the bottom of the backboard right as I looked up to see his shot, and the ball bounced back down and smacked me in the face. My nose immediately started bleeding and I started crying. Up to that point, nobody had told me that there was no crying in basketball. But on that day, there was.
In 6th grade flag football, this big defensive lineman kid kept pushing me backwards immediately after the ball was snapped. Sounds fair, right? Wrong. In flag football, you're supposed to count to 5 banana before you can cross the line of scrimmage after the snap. In fact, the counting rule is why I played offensive lineman in the first place...because it made the position completely irrelevant to the outcome of the game. That's why my coach was so smart...he put his biggest, most athletic players at the skill positions, which is why we had a very successful season. Anyway, this guy shoved me down play after play to start the game. I eventually started crying, and then complained to the referee. The very next play, BAM, he gets flagged for a 5 yard penalty. In a way, that was kind of a victorious moment for me...but because everyone saw me crying, it didn't really feel that way.
Needless to say, I didn't play sports after 6th grade.
