I didn't really play any sports in school, except the stuff I had to do as part of my physical education classes. We'd have to play kickball at recess sometimes--I was bad at kicking and not particularly fast at running, but I could catch the ball pretty well and liked playing second base. My middle school had a football unit and I got to play a weird modified version of football with my team; I usually played center. And sometimes we played volleyball, which I was okay at, but not fantastic. I did, however, try out for the tennis team when I was in high school, and took a whole tennis class in the summer before ninth grade.
I didn't make the team, and the reason sounds kind of convoluted if I try to explain it, but I "lost" a key game to someone who was terrible at tennis because I felt embarrassed trying to explain the rules to her. She kept thinking she was winning when she was serving to the wrong place or hitting the ball out, and when I kept telling her she wasn't winning those points she would get really aggressive and insist that we had to "do it over" if I thought she hadn't won the point. If I told her her serve was out, for instance, she would insist that there was no rule about where the serve needed to go, and then claim that it was her point because I didn't return the ball when I just called it out. It happened over and over, and she accused me of cheating, until finally she tied me 40/40 and immediately ran off the court to report to the coach that she had won our game. I didn't bother to counter her because I was sure she would claim I was cheating again (even though she clearly didn't understand the rules because arriving at deuce is not winning), and I thought I would have more chances, but later the same day I got cut from the team. I didn't try out again. But I continued playing tennis off and on throughout my life.
I wonder how my high school life might have been different if I had bothered to be aggressive in return and drag in an authority to watch that girl's nonsensical objections to the rules of tennis. (I know she didn't make the team either, but ugh.)
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