America Peals

As mentioned yesterday in Middle School Gym Class Circa 1987, my childhood was dedicated to the Wellesley Public School System’s Athletic Program.

The most dreaded part of every academic year was summer tryouts for Field Hockey. In 8th Grade, we were warned that we would need to run a timed mile and have the skills of an Olympiad to even be considered a member of this elite squadron. Now, as an eighth grader this news hit me like a brick of walls. I took this warning to heart.

Middle School sports was just fun and games. HS field hockey was for the big girls.

Tangentially, as I am writing this today, I recognize that my HS schedule was so goddamn busy. God, if I could do one tenth the activity I did then I would be JLO except without the hair extensions and her skeletor husband, Marc Anthony.

Let’s just jump into the last week of August in 1988. To try out for field hockey, you had to report a full week before school began (sucked my ass) for 2-3 full practices each day.

Now readers to set the scene, imagine an episode of the Gossip Girls plus an episode of the Survivor plus The Biggest Loser.

In my mind over 300 girls tried out (in actuality, the number was exceedingly smaller). Each girl fell neatly into an archetype of a girl growing up in Wellesley.

• You had the uber atheletes who were simply gifted and could probably spin gold with their field hockey sticks.
• You had the bitchy players; the mean players who would directly ask everyone in the locker (outside of coach’s earshot) if they had their period and had gone to all the way with a boy. They were decent players with a penchant for alcohol poisoning and being loose with the boy’s soccer team.
• Then we move to largest, most insidious field hockey contenders: gaggles of girls from the Drama clique and the Academic Decathlon Team, who needed a sport so they could say,”Oh, I loved everything about HS. I did this, this, this and this, followed by this. And, it would be my honor to attend Yale University and bring said leadership and my robust love of life to this prestigious school.” [sticking finger down my throat]
• Then, there was me and Jen. We simply loved to play.

Day one (which is all I can frankly cover) we gather at the HS fields near CVS where we meet Coach Molonea. Chris Molonea was to be one of my most enduring advocates and probably unknown to her, the little voice I carry around me when I think I am going to fail. But let’s be honest, she was a hard nosed, sardonic (and am hesitant to say this b/c I loved her) bitch who had no time for bullshit and no time for shananigans.  You came to play and win. If wanted something more, there was always shop…And, her teams always went to State Championships.

Molonea had us begin with a 1/4 mile jog. And, with this intial jog, Darwin’s natural selection took its toll. Girls dropped like flies. There were tears. There were laments. There were, “I’m getting my mom to call and say this is too much for a tryout.” Or, my favorite, “My cleats are killing me; they aren’t broken in.”

The quarter mile was followed by a steely eyed Belichick introduction to Wellesley FH. Followed by Suicides and Bitches-aptly named sprint drills that induced suicidal thoughts and bitchy attitudes. Brilliant strategy though; separation of wheat and chaff.

The rest of the drills that followed are inconsequential. You may expect me to wax poetically here and describe how FH tryouts made me a better person, more well adjusted, a team player. NOT.

Its horse rubbish when people talk about how nicely girls bond on teams. Its lunacy!  Remember the girls from Judy Blume’s Blubber? Yeah, that’s how it went down.  Yeah, things were learned, the exercise was great but I experienced those tryouts as more a testimony to Machiavelli than anything else. Maybe it was growing up in this particular community where the pressure to excel was unparalleled.

In fact, I am laughing now because I remember the high stress of these try outs. My friend Jen and a bunch of girls were doing a driving drill and the coaches were taking notes on players. When the coaches turned their heads, Jen picked up the ball and threw it farther than she could hit it. Unfortunately, that saucy little play was noted by a gym-teacher-to-be and on the day of cuts, Jen was not on the field. She was eating pickles on the curb outside of Wellesley High singing the Dreidel song.