The athlete in me

Tennis, Basketball, and horseshoes. I loved tennis. Billy Jean King was my idol. Take on the guys anytime. Loved basketball. Only female in the pickup games in the neighborhood. In fact, I was the only female in our age group in the neighborhood. So I had to join in or be on the sidelines. Never having been a good cheerleader, I joined in. All the guys in the neighborhood were players on the highschool football team. They sometimes played backyard football with members of a rival team. Once they really set these guys up. They claimed to be one man short to play so they offered to take "the girl" on the team. After a little balking, they agreed since they would be allowed to choose the position that I would play. They picked that I would be the center. Well, after we won the game, one of the guys from the opposing team wanted to fight me. Then he said that the only reason he didn't beat me was because I was "a girl." With a roar, my team reminded him that I was the girl that just whupped him in football. He said that he didn't want to touch me because all of the guys would jump him if he laid a hand on a girl. THOSE DOGS, my own guys dared him and said they would stay out of the mix because they wanted to watch the show when I would put him in his place. Now they would not have let him hurt me, but they sure were having a lot of fun at his expense! He had no idea of the number of times they had given me a workout keeping up with them on the field. They had no mercy on me. If you want to hang with the big dogs . . . But that was fine when they were messing with me. They never would have let someone hurt me. Dating in high school was horrible. All these guys gave any suitor a real grilling before he was "allowed" to take me out on a date.
Now those years are a long time ago, so I am left with horseshoes and the picture of me in Sports Illustrated with have the caption: Here's the After in a Before and After photo spread!