Losers Walk Home!!

Picture this.

Its 1993. A warm Saturday afternoon in Southern California. I'm clad in a high sheen polyester green jersey and black drawstring shorts, all the rage that season. My team name, "The Green Machine". I know, very original. As it turns out, soccer moms, while skilled at cutting oranges into perfect little wedges, left much to be desired when it came to choosing creative team names. But we were 13 and given the choice between a witty team name and good half-time/post game snacks, we definitely preferred the latter.

I can't remember the team we played that day. I don't know what the exact score was. Maybe we were down. Maybe we were tied. Alls I know is, we weren't winning. My mother was sitting in the bleachers, screaming directions, and since she wasn't too familiar with the soccer terminology she just yelled what she saw. I'm on the field running my little heart out. And then, out of the blue, with ten some-odd minutes left in the game, she suddenly yells out,

"Kara, don't forget, Losers walk home!!!"

Nevermind that we were quite a ways from home, and I was without a change of shoes. This was an AYSO soccer game. A-Y-S-O! A league who's motto is "Everyone Plays". I turn to look at my mom in the stands. She's laughing at her own joke, her audience of parents laughing alongside her. My mom, the only one I knew who could scream out something that ridiculous during a soccer game for middle schoolers, and convince everyone that it was just playful teasing.

Everyone, of course, except for me. There is much truth in jest. In this case, it was all truth. Now, just to be clear, my mother would never had made me walk home if we'd lost, nor would she have made me feel bad about losing. But she loved when I won. At anything! Soccer games, track meets, writing contests, spelling bees, bingo... You never saw a woman so proud. To this day, she's the first person I call after my intramural soccer games.

Losing was never an option for me, not out of fear that she would see me as a failure, but because I wouldn't get to see her see me as a winner.

This past week, during my trip to Tahoe, I was glad Mrs. F wasn't in the stands watching the atrocity which was my snowboarding. Out of the 60+ who were on the trip, I was probably in the lower 10%. Talk about a humbling experience. Actually it was more so humiliating than humbling. I spent most of my time on the mountain immersed in powder snow, watching in bitter envy as seven year olds cruised effortlessly past me. It was a disgrace.

At the end of one of my disastrous days of "snowboarding", I ended up on a hilly run. To get to the bottom I needed to hit it fast from the beginning and let the momentum take me all the way down. There was only one problem. I was afraid of going fast. I had to though. So, I mustered up the courage I needed, kicked off and went shooting down the mountain...

For about 5 seconds. AHHHHH TOO FAST!! I carved into the snow to slow down, then straightened up again. But it was too late. I kept slowing down. Then I slowed down some more. Then I completely stopped.

*Insert expletive here*

Immobile, I watched as skier after skier, snowboarder after snowboarder coasted past me. There was only one thing to do. I reached down and unhooked my boots from my bindings. Then I picked up my board and started down the mountain, all the while cursing myself for showing such cowardice.

After about twenty minutes of walking in the snow, fingertips frozen solid and nose running from being in the cold, I had to smile at the irony. Guess my mom was right afterall. Losers really do walk home.



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