Part 2: The Rest of the Story (For Those Still Interested, I Promise the Ending Is Good!)
My sophomore year of high school my football coach told me I wouldn't be playing varsity football because I wasn't tall enough. I was the only returning player at the position, knew all the plays, was pretty fast, but yet I was only 5'4'' give or take and that's the reason I never played.
Football ended that year unfortunately and it was heartbreaking. I practiced in vain while I knew I wouldn't play just because I was small.
Tennis turned out to be a great sport for me. I was consistent, I loved the sport, and I thought I was able to pick up a few wins for the team to help them achieve their tops #4 2A state rankings in high school tennis. I was proud of what I had done, humbly (although this story does not sound humble, but when telling a story, how can you be?), although I did like the attention when I was the last on the court and all eyes were on me. My senior year my team went to the semifinals of the state playoffs and lost to Newton Conover. They were great, we were too, but they were better. I loved tennis, but I wanted to move on.
While I was on UNC Men's Novice Crew for a while, occasionally we would play ultimate frisbee after a long week's practice. The first day we played UF, I sprinted down the sideline to snatch a TD over a guy's back. The next few plays I spent defending our endzone, and I swatted down a couple of potential TDs. A couple of guys were amazed that a small, 5'4'' guy could run, cover, catch and spy. Heck, I didn't know I could either; living in a world where I was called small made me doubt my abilites.
After a while, I started catching over backs ( I actually caught a frisbee for a TD while running into a random soccer goal), they guys started calling me the white knight. I have no idea why, but I think it was just because I was wearing a plain, white T-Shirt and no one else was. The couple months that followed of UF were composed of me being able to feel like I was worth something.
Therefore, the White Knight isn't just a nickname. It is a victory over a long period of struggling to feel accepted in a sporting world where being taller is usually always an advantage. It's a symbol of perserverance, willpower, determination and love for the game. Anybody up for a game of UF?
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Where I am assigned to write down things that I may not want to write down in order to pass an English class.
I know where you are coming from. Growing up I was always the small kid. My neighborhood friends called me "Weenie," but I did not mind too much because it was all in good fun. Despite my size, I always felt like I was a decent athlete. I was pretty fast and could catch the football pretty well in my neighborhood football games. After graduating from eighth grade, I decided to maybe try and go out for the high school football team. I went to about to of the workouts and decided it was not for me because I felt so intimidated by the bigger and stronger kids there. I ended up doing cross country and track instead, and it worked out because I was pretty good at running distance. I was number one on the cross country team my senior year, which is not saying a whole lot because our team was not very good but oh well. However, I did finally grow some in my later years of high school and even out grew some of my friends. I am just average now but definitely not as small as I used to be.
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