you can't row away from your past
I think everyone has a story of embarrassment that you hate to hear re-told. Maybe it's not even all that embarrassing of a situation to anyone else, but its one of those stories that particularly haunts you and makes you embarrassed and angry all over again because of the details at that time. It's like that situation just happened a few minutes ago all over again.
Here is my story that got retold this past weekend. I have to swallow this story about once a year, but first; the reason why it gets retold is because it is the first real impression between me and my first rowing coach in middle school who I run into from time to time. It's probably his favorite story about me, and it's not embarrassing for him, but I HATE it.
A rowing brush up for you.....I was a "coxswain" for my first year of rowing. This means I was in charge of steering the boat and executing motivation and race plans for the rowers, not, actually pulling the oars. If you have no idea what rowing is, you should move on to your next blog....
I always wanted to be a rower, I hated the thought of not being a puller of the boat. However, my desire to be a part of the team period, led me to the coxswain seat due to my size. I really had no idea what I was doing, which is not unusual cause this was my first year doing the sport, plus I was 13, which means I had no idea how to do anything at all besides turn on the TV. So you can imagine that a 13 year old would have lots of trouble steering a 60 foot pencil down the river and finding something to say for 8 minutes to inspire people to do something that he himself was not doing.
There was competition for this seat between myself and a guy who was the coxswain last year who was starting to get too big to be in the seat. The thought of him conjures up the most vicious thoughts imaginable in me, criminal thoughts with sick descriptive profanities. For the sake of somewhat high class literature, we'll call him derelict scumbag. One of those kids in school that was probably abused as a child and acting out in mean ways but with enough of a brain to do it with some scary talent. He was not enthused at the thought of me taking his spot.
When it came down to race time, it was decided I would race and he would be one of the rowers, and this is where the story begins.....
The whole season up to this point, and although he had never done anything specifically asshole-ish to me, I knew that he didn't like me. However, the week before the race, he was actually trying to help me, surprisingly. He was giving me tips and pointers on what to say and how to pick a line. I didn't necessarily like him yet, but I began to trust his judgement, and was no longer wary of him. The rationale being that he was in the boat so he wanted it to go well, and would help out his teammate. We are after all......in the same boat.
The night before the race, our coach took me out to dinner with the coxswain of the other boat to get us alone so we could focus on what the plan was going to be for tomorrow. He had a ton of information and I was overwhelmed. Appropriately so, because there are a million things to think about for each one of the million of scenarios that can possibly happen in a race involving first timers. It's much like learning how to drive a car for 2 months, then being entered in a rally-car race. But, somewhere in that speech was most likely this advice "stay positive at all times, cause in this race, anything can happen" I probably didn't hear that as well as I should have cause that's what comes naturally to me. I am painfully, and sometimes to my detriment, positive at all times.
Race day comes and we go out for our warm-up run. I ran with the derelict scumbag to listen to his last minute pointers. One thing he said that made sense to me at the 13 year old time of my life was "if we get behind, go ahead and swear at us and tell us that we suck and if we don't pull harder we'll lose, it'll get us angry and we'll pull harder"
I know, I know, stupidity defined right there. However, I was literally shaking I was so nervous, and in a shrewed kind of way, that made sense. Think football battle, drill Sergeant, type logic in motivating young men to fight in a war. I was thinking "I need to be aggressive, I need to rise to another level to win this race"
So we go down the course, and we lost by a little bit. It was upsetting, but that's the way it goes sometimes. The worst part was yet to come.....the rowers told the coach what I was saying during the race, and guess who was leading the revolt? Your good buddy and mine, mr. derelict scumbag.
Needless to say, the coach was not happy. He had spent all that time the night before with me in which he specifically said, remain positive. Did it matter or did he care that the derelict scumbag had sabotaged me? No, and if I was in his position, I wouldn't care either. It's common sense to listen to your coach over a derelict scumbag.
I had a made a fool of myself and did something specifically against my values and likely cost my team a race (doubtful in real life, if they were more talented than the other crew, they would have won despite words that were coming out of my mouth, but it's the principle of the thing) I had done the one thing a coxswain shouldn't do, and acted like a total embarrassing idiot Plus, the most important thing was that I had been tricked by a scumbag who was going to get away with it. My ass was totally out in the wind and I was the one who put it there just because some derelict scumbag told me to.
So, that's the story of S.Vincent's very first race. It gets told every time s.vincent and his first coach are in public. You should stop by and hear it sometime, it goes over with a big hearty laugh. he he ha ha ho ho, FUCK!
This post written while listening to: Bloc Party "I Still Remember"
Here is my story that got retold this past weekend. I have to swallow this story about once a year, but first; the reason why it gets retold is because it is the first real impression between me and my first rowing coach in middle school who I run into from time to time. It's probably his favorite story about me, and it's not embarrassing for him, but I HATE it.
A rowing brush up for you.....I was a "coxswain" for my first year of rowing. This means I was in charge of steering the boat and executing motivation and race plans for the rowers, not, actually pulling the oars. If you have no idea what rowing is, you should move on to your next blog....
I always wanted to be a rower, I hated the thought of not being a puller of the boat. However, my desire to be a part of the team period, led me to the coxswain seat due to my size. I really had no idea what I was doing, which is not unusual cause this was my first year doing the sport, plus I was 13, which means I had no idea how to do anything at all besides turn on the TV. So you can imagine that a 13 year old would have lots of trouble steering a 60 foot pencil down the river and finding something to say for 8 minutes to inspire people to do something that he himself was not doing.
There was competition for this seat between myself and a guy who was the coxswain last year who was starting to get too big to be in the seat. The thought of him conjures up the most vicious thoughts imaginable in me, criminal thoughts with sick descriptive profanities. For the sake of somewhat high class literature, we'll call him derelict scumbag. One of those kids in school that was probably abused as a child and acting out in mean ways but with enough of a brain to do it with some scary talent. He was not enthused at the thought of me taking his spot.
When it came down to race time, it was decided I would race and he would be one of the rowers, and this is where the story begins.....
The whole season up to this point, and although he had never done anything specifically asshole-ish to me, I knew that he didn't like me. However, the week before the race, he was actually trying to help me, surprisingly. He was giving me tips and pointers on what to say and how to pick a line. I didn't necessarily like him yet, but I began to trust his judgement, and was no longer wary of him. The rationale being that he was in the boat so he wanted it to go well, and would help out his teammate. We are after all......in the same boat.
The night before the race, our coach took me out to dinner with the coxswain of the other boat to get us alone so we could focus on what the plan was going to be for tomorrow. He had a ton of information and I was overwhelmed. Appropriately so, because there are a million things to think about for each one of the million of scenarios that can possibly happen in a race involving first timers. It's much like learning how to drive a car for 2 months, then being entered in a rally-car race. But, somewhere in that speech was most likely this advice "stay positive at all times, cause in this race, anything can happen" I probably didn't hear that as well as I should have cause that's what comes naturally to me. I am painfully, and sometimes to my detriment, positive at all times.
Race day comes and we go out for our warm-up run. I ran with the derelict scumbag to listen to his last minute pointers. One thing he said that made sense to me at the 13 year old time of my life was "if we get behind, go ahead and swear at us and tell us that we suck and if we don't pull harder we'll lose, it'll get us angry and we'll pull harder"
I know, I know, stupidity defined right there. However, I was literally shaking I was so nervous, and in a shrewed kind of way, that made sense. Think football battle, drill Sergeant, type logic in motivating young men to fight in a war. I was thinking "I need to be aggressive, I need to rise to another level to win this race"
So we go down the course, and we lost by a little bit. It was upsetting, but that's the way it goes sometimes. The worst part was yet to come.....the rowers told the coach what I was saying during the race, and guess who was leading the revolt? Your good buddy and mine, mr. derelict scumbag.
Needless to say, the coach was not happy. He had spent all that time the night before with me in which he specifically said, remain positive. Did it matter or did he care that the derelict scumbag had sabotaged me? No, and if I was in his position, I wouldn't care either. It's common sense to listen to your coach over a derelict scumbag.
I had a made a fool of myself and did something specifically against my values and likely cost my team a race (doubtful in real life, if they were more talented than the other crew, they would have won despite words that were coming out of my mouth, but it's the principle of the thing) I had done the one thing a coxswain shouldn't do, and acted like a total embarrassing idiot Plus, the most important thing was that I had been tricked by a scumbag who was going to get away with it. My ass was totally out in the wind and I was the one who put it there just because some derelict scumbag told me to.
So, that's the story of S.Vincent's very first race. It gets told every time s.vincent and his first coach are in public. You should stop by and hear it sometime, it goes over with a big hearty laugh. he he ha ha ho ho, FUCK!
This post written while listening to: Bloc Party "I Still Remember"
2 comments:
"For the sake of somewhat high class literature, we'll call him 'derelict scumbag.'" ahhh the derelict scumbag, i think faulkner uses this same term in his memoirs. but seriously i love that you named this douche something classy, like a high priced Vegas whore, Roxanne.
HILARIOUS! I have to say, that was a great story and I hate that guy for you. RUDE!! He didn't even get in trouble? So unfair.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I'll be checking yours out more. :)
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