For some gay and
lesbian adults, having been chosen last in P.E. class
inflicts a wound they still feel today, keeping them from
enjoying sports and wreaking havoc on their
self-esteem. Judy Kamilhor examines the
"chosen-last syndrome" and other traumatic childhood
sports experiences -- and shows how to overcome them.
Life as we know
it changed for a lot of people in 1969. There was the
first man on the moon, the "Miracle Mets" upsetting the
heavily favored Baltimore Orioles to win their first
baseball World Series—and the beginning of
the end of my family. While my father, older brother,
and I were at Shea Stadium in Queens, N.Y., for game 3 of
that series, a tumor was growing in my mother's brain.
She was dead before my next birthday, and we had to
carry on without the driving force of our family.
Baseball was my
first passion, and the New York Mets were my first chosen
tribe. They provided the stability I didn't get at home. One
of the last things my mother did for me, between
hospital stays and five-day-a-week chemotherapy
sessions, was to get me into the Forest Hills Lassie League
when I was 9, one year earlier than the girls' softball
league allowed. She knew I would need something to
throw myself into once she was gone. My father later
told me that she did this in spite of her fear that my
passion for sports meant I would become a lesbian.
I was a tomboy
from day one. Almost as soon as I could walk, I began to
run, jump, and play baseball, football, and other games with
neighborhood kids. I played schoolyard punchball and
kickball in elementary school. Only one boy was a
better athlete, and he later played in the United
States Football League, a short-lived competitor to the
National Football League. People who saw me play
sports would often ask me if I was a boy or a girl
because they couldn't wrap their heads around how well I
played.
A typical
kickball game when I was 8 years old involved me kicking the
ball over everyone's head and sprinting around the bases. In
the field I would play shortstop and cover the entire
field, trying to make every play myself. I was
happiest when I was playing sports; I felt whole and
alive. Then we all hit puberty, a curve ball I was totally
unprepared for.
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Kamilhor is a writer in New York. For more information on
her and her work, visit ReclaimSports.com.