Blog Option 4 - Katsigiannis

Option #4

While in high school I played varsity water polo and swam on the varsity team as well. My junior year during the spring season of water polo at a game against our biggest rival I felt the same way as the girl did in Sandra Cisneros writing, Eleven. Over the winter break my reoccurring knee injury began to act up and my doctor recommended I did therapy and didn’t push myself too hard during practices. I presented my coach, whom I have never had a good relationship with, the doctors note but continued to train. A few months later I was back to training in full force and working hard during practices to make up for any lost time.

The night of a big game I got my suit on, put my lucky number 8 cap on and sat on the bench, ready to re-leave one of the senior starters. By half time, I still had not had any playing time. I was frustrated and asked my coach to give me an explanation, he simply said, “We’ll use you when we need you…” I accepted his response and continued to cheer on my team, which was winning by 3 goals. My coach signaled to the referee that he wanted to substitute player, as I eagerly waited for him to call my name, he skipped me and instead asked a junior varsity player to jump in. I was furious. I could not understand his logic behind this. I had been to every practice, put in all the effort I could after recovering from an injury and was being a team player, WHY DIDN’T I GET TO PLAY?! Just like the girl in Eleven, everything I had been holding in was about to explode. The game ended, we won, my suit was dry, I did not get to play, and I was determined to get to the bottom of this.

After my coach critiqued the game and dismissed us, I stayed behind and confronted my coach, who was standing in front of the parent crowd. My coach stepped closer to me, leaned over me, as if he was trying to intimidate me or belittle me and said, “Hrisa, you are lazy, you probably lied about the pain in your knee so you could slack off, and when something matters to you, you decide you’re all better. I don’t need players like you on my team, fix your attitude, try harder and maybe a junior varsity beginner won’t replace you.” Not only was this humiliating, but every parent heard my coach put me down and they just stared at me with their jaws hanging and probably wondering how I wasn’t crying.

Although I could relate to the young girl in Eleven feeling humiliated, “my face all hot and spit coming out of my mouth because I can’t stop the little animal noises from coming out of me until there aren’t any more tears left in my eyes…”, instead of just letting things be, words came flying out of my mouth (Cisneros 2). By the time I finished, I stepped closer to my coach, puffed out my chest and told him, “I don’t need a coach like you, I quit!”