What’s my sport?

Now that the Summer Olympics have ended and I’ve gotten my life back, I’ve been asking myself what my sport would be if I were an Olympian.

The assumption is that I would be an elite athlete in the sport, even at my age. (Yes, it would be miraculous.)

To be clear, I’m considering only the Summer Olympics; I’ve already determined that the four-man bobsled would be my sport in the Winter Games. In this event, two members of the team do nothing except push a bobsled for a few feet and then jump into it, put their heads down, and pray! The only problem is that women are not allowed to participate in the four-person bobsled, for no apparent reason. This, as you might imagine, royally frosts me.

Anyway, let’s get down to it.

First of all, I wouldn’t want to choose a sport in which the practices alone would be grueling. Why select a marathon, for example, or even a 10,000-meter race, which involves 25 laps around the track? Why punish yourself repeatedly in grueling dry runs, each time to the point of exhaustion, when instead you could be whizzing down the track working on the 100-meter dash and be done in mere seconds?

So that eliminates most of the road and track races, most of the swimming events, anything involving a bicycle, and of course the ultimate in torture, the triathlon.

Besides, have you seen some of those marathoners? Gaunt! Borderline skeletal! I like to eat large quantities of food – including before, after, and possibly during competitions – so the skin-and-bones look is out for me.

Plus those long races could potentially cause dehydration, which is already a problem with semi-oldsters like me and I’m dizzy enough as it is.

I also want nothing to do with skimpy suits. At my age, no one needs to see most of my body parts. This would knock out diving, beach volleyball, gymnastics, and a good number of the track and field events.

(I was actually appalled at some of the butt-baring and crotch-revealing athletic uniforms for the women this year. Maybe I’m just a prude from the Stone Age, but YIKES! If I had it my way, all competitors would wear the uniforms worn by the male gymnasts. They make everyone look athletic, robust, and dynamic, without revealing every damn thing!)

Any event that could result in drowning would be a no-go for me, too. That would exclude water polo and surfing.

Similarly, I would avoid sports that are potentially dangerous. Comedian Erma Bombeck said she refused to try “skiing or any other sport where there was an ambulance waiting at the bottom of the hill.” So this rules out “breaking” (which, let’s face it, is not really a sport anyway), hockey, climbing, trampoline, rugby, weightlifting, taekwondo, skateboarding, and – obviously – boxing. I don’t want no chin music!

My weak rotator cuff – torn in 2005, and never completely back to normal – can’t stand any overuse, so I’d have to leave out badminton, tennis, basketball, handball, shot put, javelin, and probably volleyball.

Even the seemingly mild contact sports that could involve my being thrown to the ground and breaking every one of my osteoporotic bones should be excised from the list – e.g., judo and wrestling.

I also couldn’t participate in a sport whose scores are based on judgment. I’m too insecure to be judged! So this wipes out gymnastics, diving, and that silly event rhythmic gymnastics.

Anything that involves pinpoint accuracy would not be my cup of tea, either. I’m too nervous, and I can’t compete effectively with shaky limbs. I used to take a beta blocker just to be able to play my drums in front of an audience. (Like any bad-ass rocker!) As a softball pitcher, sometimes I was really good but at other times I’d be a basket case and walk 13 batters in a row while my teammates stood around helplessly, obliged to be ultra-supportive. Anyway, this affliction counts out golf and, of course, shooting and archery.

I’m not big on team sports in the Olympics. I mean, it’s conceivable that a slacker could be carried along by the rest of the team and get a gold medal anyway! So that dispenses with basketball, ping-pong, and rugby.

As far as I’m concerned, mammals with hooves should not be a part of the Olympics, which would keep me from the equestrian events. Besides, who participates in a sport while wearing a blazer?!

Let’s move on to my biggest fear in life: being upside down. There’s actually a word for this – anapodaphobia. I’ve never been able to do a somersault, for example, because of this terror. “Artistic [formerly synchronized] swimming,” therefore, wouldn’t make the cut.

And of course neither would diving or gymnastics. It’s become clear that those two sports are the most obviously problematic, since they involve being upside-down, risking serious injury, and wearing ridiculously skimpy uniforms.

The heptathlon would be eliminated straight away because five of its seven events involve hurdles (too dangerous), high jump (too dangerous), shot put (a torn rotator cuff just waiting in the wings), javelin (same rotator cuff problem), and the 800-meter run (too grueling). But I also have an ideological problem with it. (So what else is new?) Women don’t get to participate in the 10-event decathlon because they’ve been considered just too delicate for the discus throw, the pole vault, and the 1,500-meter race. But they are allowed to participate in those sports as individuals! Go figure! Disgruntled women have been loudly petitioning for a change to these outdated prohibitions for a while now, but the International Olympic Committee (don’t even get me started) claims that it would be unfair to current heptathletes to suddenly throw them into a whole new sport. Well, then – as the petitioners have argued – we could set a date about 12 years in the future so that current heptathletes will be grandfathered in and budding decathletes in the right age range can start training! But noooooooo.

Pole dancing, on the other hand, probably would be just fine with the IOC. Believe it or not, the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle sports section last Sunday featured an article about pole dancing organizations around the world that are pushing to get their “sport” included in the Olympics. Setting aside my traditionalist shock at this, I imagine that pole dancing would involve a skimpy outfit, so I’m ruling it out before it’s even accepted as a bona fide event. God forbid.

It appears that ultimately, then, I’m left with four choices: the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes, the long jump, and fencing.

Not to be too braggadocious, but I was pretty good at all of these things when I was young. I had no endurance whatsoever, but I was quick and had fast reflexes.

My high school actually offered fencing as a Physical Education elective. I chose it and went at it with gusto and learned how to fence like a hyped-up European nobleman.

I think fencing is my Olympics choice. There is very little, if any, chance of an injury – certainly not one that would require a stretcher. A fencer is never upside-down. And the uniform is the very opposite of skimpy. Fencers are swathed shoulder-to-ankles in high-strength polymer materials that must be “able to resist a pressure of 800 Newtons.” I don’t know what that means but it’s right up my alley. They also wear an undergarment made of protective plastron. Again, no clue, but sounds great. And of course gloves. And a mask that looks strong enough to withstand a mishap in outer space.

So that does it. I’m going to be your American fencing champion at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. If I live that long.

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Due to popular demand, I am including, at the end of each blog post, the latest random diary entries that I’ve been posting on Facebook for “Throwback Thursday.” These are all taken absolutely verbatim from the lengthy diaries I kept between 1970 and 1987.

September 24, 1975 [age 19]:

“Hello, diary, I have just returned from the most expensive, yet DELICIOUS, dinner at Joshua’s on Stevens Creek. I had missed [my friend] Morris’ birthday and went searching for a book to buy him in three different bookstores and found nothing, and I was hungry at the time so I thought of taking him out to dinner instead. We drove up to Mom’s to get the Diner’s Card. It was a MARVELOUS meal – I had steak, scampi, salad, french bread, rice pilaf, french fried mushrooms, fried zucchini, an artichoke, and two desserts. I’m stuffed to the gills.”

September 28, 1975 [age 19]:

“It’s Sunday and I’m trying to recollect what happened this weekend. Friday I stayed home all day with the worst cramps I’ve ever had, my eyes getting cloudy and me nearly blacking out in my delirium. I read in bed until nightfall, when one of Mom’s codeine painkillers finally knocked my pain. Yesterday I went back to school to go to the library and found a book I’d quoted but had neglected to get the bibliographical information for. For a long time I just sat there listening to Bob Dylan, with a paper waiting to be written. Then I had to write the dumb paper so Mom could type it. I ate dinner [at my parents’ house] and spent the night there and then today I finished the dumb old paper and it took us longer to figure out the correct form and measurements, etc. than to write the entire paper. Dad kept coming by and asking if it was a class in ‘form.’ Joyful that I had it done, I galloped upstairs and read ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and laughed and laughed. Still, I have not gone to church and I’m beginning to feel a bit guilty about that.”

October 1, 1975 [age 19]:

“Today was a neat day. I got paid, which is always nice, and then I went to play tennis with Krish [dormmate from India]. I even invited him to eat dinner with us at home tomorrow night. Then supper in the Dining Commons – it was a horrible meal, but I met a bunch of neat kids, including one blond curly-haired Bob Dylan-type New Yorker. He seemed a little conceited to me, though, in his cuteness. Then with Krish and [my roommate] Sally I watched ‘Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex’ with Woody Allen. Had a talk with Paul in our floor lounge to try to find out who’s in charge of our dorm newspaper. [My friend] Carolyn called then, and later [my friend] Morris brought over two bottles of Sambuca and we sat and listened to the ‘Woodstock’ album. He just left and now it’s 11:15 and I have to finish reading ‘Huckleberry Finn’ but I’m kind of smashed.”

October 2, 1975 [age 19]:

“Why why why am I so utterly S-T-R-A-N-G-E? I always yearn for a close relationship and yet when one suddenly seems to be in the offing I totally zap off! ‘Zap off’ is a term I just made up, meaning lose interest.”

October 6, 1975 [age 19]:

“Most of the time I feel like I just stumble through life dreary-eyed and hesitant.”

October 11, 1975 [age 19]:

“I had to get my wisdom teeth out yesterday. They gave me a medication (not pentothal) through a needle in my arm. The nurse said it works gradually and would only relax me, but I’ll still be able to cooperate with the doctor. That scared me. I wanted to be OUT. She kept asking if I was feeling anything. I said no, they increased the dosage, we talked about San Jose State, the doctor walked in, and I woke up all nauseated and disoriented with these nurses hovering over me saying that all four teeth were out. I realized that I HAD been knocked out but then they said what a cooperative patient I’d been. I was thinking, ‘No, I wasn’t even awake, why are you freaking me out like this?’ I was sick as a dog every time they made me turn my face up rather than to the side. Today the lower right side is sore because the roots were curved and broke off and he had to dig to get them out. He made it sound like he had to work really hard so I’m surprised I don’t have a footprint on my neck! Overall, though, the pain isn’t as bad as the pill-taking and gargling rigamarole.”

October 14, 1975 [age 19]:

“At 10:30 I walked home from my film class elated – we had this thrilling lecture on Japanese samurai customs and a live demonstration, then watched a crazy Japanese samurai movie with a lot of laughs thrown in by this cute guy sitting next to me. He offered me his friend’s Mr. Pibb and after I drank it he said, ‘I hope you don’t have any cracks in your skin – this guy has a lot of diseases.’ I got my [wisdom tooth] stitches out at Dr. Follmar’s office and he shook my hand and said goodbye forever. Then I managed to read 300 pages to finish up [Theodore Dreiser’s book] Sister Carrie, and now [my roommate] Sally is sitting on the bed throwing Wheat Thins at me.”

October 19, 1975 [age 19]:

“This has to rank with one of my busier weekends. Yesterday I went to see this International Food Festival at the Fairgrounds. It was free; Mary Pasek dropped by at noon and we drove off to gorge ourselves. I had a Chinese plate and a Pan American turkey sandwich and baklava for dessert, then went home and had a fried chicken dinner. After that, [my roommate] Sally and I had tickets to see B.J. Thomas at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. The Beau Brummels played first. B.J. was stupendous! I always get enchanted with theaters and lights anyway. Then tonight Ted and I went to see Elton John in Oakland. We had raced up there thinking the concert was at 7:00, but it was at 8:00. Elton was fantastic, and he played the longest time I’ve ever known anyone to play: 3 hours and 45 minutes. There was only a 15-minute intermission in between his ‘short’ set of old songs and his long set of new ones, during which time I waited in a monstrous line to use the women’s bathroom, fearing I wouldn’t be able to find my way back in the dark but arriving 3 or 4 seconds before the lights dimmed again. Gosh, he was great – sang every song you’d want to hear, and then some, including one I REALLY got into, which was the Beatles oldie ‘I Saw Her Standing There.’ The surprising thing is that he WASN’T flashy, he didn’t commercialize himself, and he played so amazingly long! We ate dinner at Sam’s afterwards and got home at 2:30 a.m.”

October 26, 1975 [age 19]:

“I’m getting some kind of growth on my leg, which I should go see the doctor about; my car has strange squeaky sounds, which I should go see the mechanic about; Baron [a family dog] stepped on my glasses and bent the frames, which I should see the optician about; and I should get on the waiting list for the dorm next year, which I should see the administration about. But I know I won’t do any of these! And I’m not even sure if I’ll be in the dorm next semester. I’m not sure if I want to change my major. And I’m not sure what will be happening next year. Sometimes I can’t stand the nebulousness of my life.”

October 28, 1975 [age 19]:

“Ah, now I’ve hit upon one of the keys to my personality – I look at life through a lens, a camera lens. This does not mean that I look at it realistically; I look at life through a distorted frame. No, I’m not even sure I can accurately describe this feeling – okay, I’m never really a part of my surroundings, and that’s why I have a hard time communicating. I’m like a reporter or a movie director watching the play go on through my camera. Everything is like a scene and I just look for the best angles; I must record it, but I can never enter it myself.”

October 30, 1975 [age 19]:

“I contracted a horrible cold today but I still went out to dinner with Carolyn and Mary at Sun ’N Soil Health Foods. There was something neat about eating there – because it seemed like something a collegiate person like me should be doing. It was scary, too, because the elements of hippy-dom and freedom always threaten me, for some reason. But I had a cream cheese and nut sandwich with banana and honey. It was delicious (and cheap!). They also gave me a little cup with various nuts, seeds, and raisins in it. How cute!”