Climbing the Country Club Sports Ladder

Some women participate in country club sports because they think it will improve their social status. For them, the syllogism is this:

Athletes are cool.

I am an athlete.

I am cool.

Not for me. Social status is something I have never really aspired to. Even in high school, I was always comfortable in my own skin and never felt the need to be a part of one particular clique—I was a floater: I floated in and out of a variety of social circles quite comfortably—I was transient. I was the permanent sub. And I liked it that way—still do. So elevating my social status was not the covert reason why I played country club sports. And while I genuinely enjoyed running after bouncing yellow balls, playing with my friends,  wearing sports attire and using new  equipment, the secret motivator for me to excel athletically was to avenge the fact that I had always been chosen nearly last for every schoolyard and gym game in elementary school. For me, rising up the country club team ladder in tennis and platform tennis and golf was a kind of revenge of the nerds.

There was nothing I grew to enjoy more than winning  matches and tournaments—and it had less to do with adding a “W” on an excel sheet and everything to do with the puzzled look that the real athletes and the self-appointed athletes gave me upon learning of my victories. The high I got from the “press” of winning was better than a narcotic. In fact it was a narcotic-- and I was addicted.

Here’s the thing: when you are an underestimated athlete, you are pressure free. And the mental freeness (combined with a lot of lessons ) empowers you. And that freeness is what enabled me and my friend Amy to nab the Long Island Platform Tennis Fight IV President’s Cup in March of 1999. It was my first trophy and tournament win.

The story is simple. In 1998-1999 I was the captain with my friend Elaine of the Flight IV Cherry Valley Platform tennis team. At the end of the season, as captains, we were obligated to send our 2 best players to the final tournament of the year. And I no longer know how or why it happened, but my friend Amy and I, not touted by any means as the best players, somehow ended up representing our club.

The tournament was set up as an 8 game pro set round robin. Eight teams (including ours) participated. Our first match was against 2 women who had destroyed us on the courts the week before. But they had made a fatal error after that match—they told us what our strengths and weaknesses were, so when we faced them in the first round of the tournament the following week, we managed to beat them. And then we managed to beat the next six teams. And before we knew it we were in our final match against two women from Huntington Country Club. And we were exhausted. We needed to win 7 of the 8 games in that final pro set to win the tournament. But the problem was that my partner Amy had been the student of one of the women we were playing against.  And In the first game of that last match, that fact was mentally doing her in.

And that’s when I had what I call my Moonstruck-Cher-slapping-Nickolas Cage-across the face-“Snap-out-of-it!” moment. It had taken me 39 years to avenge my former athletic shortcomings. Victory was at my (our) fingertips (literally—we had racquets in our hands) and I was not going to lose because of some retired school teacher.  I remember using my peri-menopausal Darth Vader voice and simply, but scarily advised Amy: Stop talking to her. She is not your teacher anymore. Let’s get this thing done already. Let’s go.

And it worked. And we won. And it was sweet. And we got trophies. And we got our name in the platform tennis newsletter. And my head was so swollen with conceit I had trouble walking through doorways. This nerd had gotten her revenge. And it was wonderful.

But it gets more wonderful-er than that. For days and weeks after the tournament, the real athletes and the self-appointed athletes would congratulate me and Amy on our win—some of the congratulations were genuine and many of them were not. But it didn’t matter. I (we) had a trophy and they did not. And the fact that I had been chosen nearly last on every schoolyard and gym game in elementary school was completely avenged. I wasn’t a non-athlete after all—I just had a very very slow learning curve: 39 years to be exact.  I indeed had prowess—I was an athlete. And after all that time, I had the accolades and engraved sterling silver to prove it.