Daily Sitka Sentinel

Pure Sole: Heads Up (and other warning shouts)

KLAS STOLPE
Pure Sole
    Ouch!
    Isn’t there a phrase for like-minded sports enthusiasts to yell out when a stray orb, implement, or expectorate is flying through the air in your direction?
    Something like… “On guard!”
    Or, “Incoming!”
    Or, “Oops!”
    Or, “Dude, duck!”
    I caught my first verbal tirade the other day.
    It was pointed and prickly and sharp and insinuating, right through my head, heart and soul.
    I am sensitive that way.
    Yep, I caught it full on.
    It was one of those shots where, at first, the shock is so great your face is white and then it slowly builds into a red welt the size of whatever the striking device was.
    The kind of thing where you quickly jump up and look around to make sure no one else in the gym saw it happen.
    If someone did witness it you try and play it off like you meant to do it.
    Like, you know, I actually meant to step my right foot over my left foot when turning to the right and therefore my face has imprinted in the bleachers and my popcorn is in someone’s fan-crazed, sports-enthused hair colorings.
    My attack felt like a punch so hard, my parents, rest their souls, must have felt the contact, reaching out from the beyond to remind me that Bag Balm soothes all ills.
    It was a mental blow that will require RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation), but I can still play. No concussion here, nor would I admit one (that’s another column).
    I can soldier on, go the distance, give it my all, work harder, step up, believe in my team, show my spirit, and practice good sportsmanship. All those things we teach our kids.
    And the offense that warranted the vocal bombardment?
    Not important.
    What matters is how I respond.
    No lashing out here. No extra elbows under the basket, no retaliations on the underclassmen, and no Icy Hot put into an errant jock strap in someone’s locker.
    Nope. I will just review my season to date and try to improve my practice habits so I can at least be better prepared to zig-dodge-zag when “incoming” is shouted.
    Briefly, in reflection...
    I missed some happenings around town, some travels abroad, some sporties and intellectuals I knew nothing about. 
    I blew it. I admit that.
    I don’t think I have caused any game penalty or loss of medals or conference standing yet.
    I hope no one has thrown their athletic supporters and sports bras into a dark corner of their closest, never to be worn again.
    I trust those pursuing extracurricular activities are still getting up an extra hour early, or staying an hour or two later, uncaring about some advanced age writer with standards of glory days that grow grander as his pants hem shrinks.
    That is what sports are about. That is life.
    It is in your unseen and unappreciated endeavors that you grow. It is in your growth that I get wiser.
    Just because I didn’t mention something does not mean it didn’t happen and won’t get mentioned now.
    The athletes, band mates, debaters, and teams in Sitka are all winners. Not because they are atop the standings, but because they are in an activity or sport.
    I have some ideas on my radar for future pieces but if you are a laundry-bearer of a walking, talking, adolescent calorie consumer please give a shout out, a ‘holla’ if you will...
    If you are leading a gaggle of these oxygen suckers, or trying to understand their brain capacities, please give a “heads up” when something is coming my way.
    Hopefully I won’t get blindsided and will catch it and throw it back with a little more oomph than before.
    And then I can say “Good hands!”