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How I Became an Athlete | 3.24.01
I remember my first time in an American public school. I was a fresh off the boat Korean who was about to enter first grade. This ESL teacher was giving me and my parents a tour of the school. Then out of nowhere, I had a sudden need to display my speed. I just ran as fast as I could down the hallway, leaving my parents behind. I still have no idea why I would do such an embarrassing thing, but my six-year old legs carried me like the wind. When I ran back to my parents, the ESL teacher said something about running in the hallways being against the school rules. My parents just frowned at me and told me to calm down. But from that experience, I guess I always knew that I had some sort of athletic ability. I moved to a new school in second grade and I didn't fit in with the kids there at all. It also seemed as if I was getting fatter each month. I loved to eat and I didn't mind having a belly so I guess I didn't realize how chubby I looked. I was pretty much a loner until I got in this game of soccer with kids at recess. I must have been overjoyed that day because I remember writing a journal entry about it along with a fully colored picture. I wasn't any good at soccer, so the kids stopped picking me for teams and I went back to sitting on the monkey bars for recess. My cousin moved in with my family when I was in second grade. He came from Korea to attend a private school in Rhode Island but stayed with us in New Jersey during vacations. He was very tall for a Korean, almost six feet, and was an excellent athlete. I never liked him much because he was very spoiled and bullied me. He even called me a duck because I had a big butt then and walked with my butt sticking out. But looking back in retrospect, I have great respect for him as an athlete because he loved to play sports and tried hard to improve himself all the time. He particularly loved basketball. I remembered him borrowing my bike to go to the basketball courts where the black kids played so he could improve his game. He would play two on six with neighborhood kids a few years younger than him with me being his only teammate (we'd usually win - he was unstoppable). Because of him, I grew to love basketball. I even came to love the New York Knicks because he was a big Chicago Bulls fan and I wanted to spite him. My cousin was a very successful athlete in high school. He played three varsity sports (soccer, basketball, and baseball) and was often in local Rhode Island newspapers. I never realized how good he was at sports until much later, when he got into Washington University of St. Louis with subpar grades and SAT scores; sports had helped him tremendously. It was in third grade when two Jewish kids, seeing me moping around during recess as usual, asked me if I wanted to play football. I told them I didn't know how to play the game and they insisted that I learn from them. It was strange to see a peanut shaped ball thrown around in spirals. I had trouble catching it and throwing it at first, but I had fun learning the game. The two kids taught me little by little each day until I had learned the game fully. I began to come to after school intermurals, where they played two-hand touch football. I developed a reputation as a great receiver and my idol soon became Jerry Rice (I hung a poster of him in my wall). The next year, my mom joined me in Pee-Wee (Pop Warner) football, telling me to make more friends by playing. The coaches liked my size and speed and made me a running back. I barely made the weight limit for a ball carrier and even had to shed a few pounds, but Pop Warner football, for the first time in my life, gave me a boost in self-confidence. I was a good running back. I was tough to tackle and I even played very well as an outside linebacker. I scored four touchdowns that year, more than anyone else on my team and was awarded Offensive MVP. Football became THE sport for me. I read about its history, watched all the games on television, and even started my own league with the kids in my neighborhood called the After School Football League. I was finally beginning to emerge as an athlete. I moved about seven blocks from a white neighborhood to a Korean neighborhood in the same town. The result was more friends and close distance to a park where my friends always hung out. Sports became a passion for all of us. We rode our bikes everywhere and according to the season, we played the appropriate sports. We played basketball whenever the court was available and the weather not too bad, we played football in the autumn and winter, baseball in the summer, and some roller hockey in the spring. It was a never-ending cycle of sporting fun. My second football year was tough; I played with bigger and older kids in the Junior Pop Warner division and had to accept my role as a backup running back. My weight had continued to increase then and towards the end of the season, I was converted into a guard. I missed carrying the ball for the team and did not enjoy the season at all. The following season, I was the captain of my team, but did not enjoy my roles as a guard and defensive end. I was no longer a star; I had convinced a newly moved Korean friend to join football and he turned out to be a phenomenon with his brute strength. He was an animal at noseguard and offensive tackle. Even as a captain, I believed that this may well be the last year of my football career. The summer after my dismal football season, my parents decided that I was too fat. They saw me walking around without my shirt and thought it was a hideous sight. My dad proposed that I should exercise every night. Little did I know that I was about to be tortured. My dad made me do crazy things like crab walk around the house until my legs were dead or jump up and down until my calves were burning. He had this wooden board that he kept near him as a "disciplinary tool." He never really hit me with it, but it was fairly effective in keeping me working. While having a beer and watching TV, my dad would command my exercises. Push-ups, sit-ups, jump rope - it was hell. The worst was the flexibility exercises. My dad would make me try to reach my toes or spread my legs by force and I often found myself crying towards the end. On some nights, I would retire to the shower with tears coming down my cheeks. Looking back, there was no abuse or cruelty; my dad was doing me a favor by building up my character with tough workouts and also helping me to lose weight. By the end of the summer, I was so slim that some people failed to recognize me. I moved to another town later that summer and made friends with a Taiwanese kid who lived a short walk from my house. He was two years older than me and he loved to play basketball. We played against each other countless times on his driveway basket. He was better than me and almost always beat me, but I learned many new moves from him. I also made friends with a Korean kid who played basketball all over town. I followed him to nearby parks, the community center, kids' houses, and even church to play. The absence of organized football from my life allowed me to play basketball more. I befriended a group of kids in my grade who played basketball at this rich kid's house each Friday and I instantly became a top player among them, gaining both respect and friendship. I even joined the recreational town league, leading my team to an undefeated regular season before being beat in the playoffs. It was in eighth grade that I had found joy in football again. After I had moved to this new town, my new friends were never big fans of football. I found out that a group of older kids played on a sloping hill behind a kid's house nearby. I would walk there each Saturday afternoon in the fall and play. Being a faster and thinner kid by then, I enjoyed my ability to return kickoffs for touch downs, catch long bombs, and outrun other kids. I was often the first pick and yet the youngest one there. The group wasn't without talent; some of the kids there played Pop Warner football and would later become varsity football players. I guess these Saturday afternoons were sneak peak of what was to happen in high school. I remember receiving a call from my friend on an August afternoon after my eighth grade year. He told me that kids interested in playing freshman football were going to practices at the high school we were going to enter in a few weeks. I pondered on the thought of playing football again. The Saturday afternoon games had whetted my desires to play on the oraganized level again. My parents weren't too thrilled with the prospective of joining such a time-consuming sport (when would I study?). I convinced them to let me join and thus began my high school career as an athlete. All these moments and processes mentioned above helped to forge the body and mind that helped me to have success in high school as an athlete. An athlete is not only someone who has the ability to play sports well, but is someone who loves to play and would go to great lengths to participate and do well. Being an athlete has allowed me to develop a competitive and determined spirit, a sense of pride, and a willingness to cooperate with others. Such traits have helped me in other areas such as academics and non-sporting activites. When I hear someone remark about sports as "just a game," I disagree; the elements of athletics create a microcosm of life that allows one to tweak and enhance the ability to deal with real life. That's why I'm glad I became an athlete. |