I Am Bismark

jumping into pits of things, despite seeming like a great way to spend a saturday night, isn’t really as exciting as one might think. especially when it just makes one realize one was born with absolutely no athletic ability. trust me on this one, always choose the alternative to jumping into pits of things.

i was tired all day. probably because i was up until 3 am eating omelets with current and former 100 hour board writers.

anyway, like i said before, i have absolutely no athletic talent. no coordination, no balance, nothing. various events have reminded me of this (tonight’s pit jumping, dancing in a musical play, etc). i suppose i could blame in on bad genes. no one in my family has ever been even the slightest athletic. my dad played video games with me instead of playing basketball.

story time (IOW, more than you ever wanted to know about ryan): like i said, no athletic ability whatsoever. always last picked at recess. always worst in gym class. little league bench warmer. the list goes on. but i always wished i could be good at basketball. i was tall, i enjoyed watching it, and it was fun to play despite my lack of talent. i went to basketball camps all the time. i wonder how many times they asked themselves when that silly red headed kid was going to stop showing up to these things. middle school rolled around. being a boy who wished he could play sports with the other guys, i did what seemed natural, i joined the football team. dumb. dumb. dumb. even dumber for the coaches to make me a left tackle. knocked flat on my back every time. no thanks. basketball was decent. i played second string for the second team… after the season, it was going to be going back to video games in the evenings. no spring sports for me. i had given up on baseball years ago. but then my homeroom teacher just had to be track captain, and she just had to hound on me everyday to join the team. i did. failed miserably at the events the gave me also. they made me throw discus. wow. i think i hit opening heigth for the high jump once. 400 meter dash was a joke. but at least i was exercising. kept me from just sitting in front of a computer all day. then came the dreaded 1 mile run in physical education class. i was usually one of the last in the class to finish. i prepared myself for another debacle, but as i began, amazingly, i was running faster than my classmates. it was definitely a new experience. 6:34 mile. enough to have the cross country coach invite me out for the team the next fall. tried it, wasn’t too hot, but enjoyed it. even though i was slow, i had the feeling that i could get better. track the next season was even better. conference runner up in the one mile run. to prepare for high school cross country the next fall, i decided to run 3 miles every day. i had no idea how to measure threee miles, so i ran around the track 12 times every night. freshman cross country year, i made it onto the varsity team by midseason. continued with a decent track season. i never was great. i think i can safely blame that on the aforementioned complete lack of any innate athletic talent. but i can’t be sad with what i acheived. 6 times all-conference in CC and track. track mvp my senior year. its what put me through high school. even if our team was the only winning sports team at the school (which was basically true), we were still the nerds and the losers, but that was ok. it felt good to be good at something.

lame story, sorry for the waste of time. just a peek into the person that makes up ryan.