There is something mind-altering about the lights on Kehoe Field. Mild-mannered men morph into soccer hooligans beneath their fluorescent glow. Demure ladies don their seventh grade Umbro shorts and proceed to sweat-not glisten-their way through sports bras the moment they hit the pitch. Such is the thrill of intramural sports, where, under the cover of the D.C. night, pent-up competitiveness is released and every man secretly wishes that Coed Naked Sports was more than a clever advertising ploy.
My intramural involvement was born out of hatred for the ellipticals at Yates. A person can manically flail their legs in a bizarre imitation of speed walking for only so long before they realize that, in high school, they used to actually run. Outside. With other people. After a ball. Up until this year, I had played on competitive sports teams since third grade, when my CYO basketball coach began my formation as an athlete.
Mr. Sweeney was a sensitive guy who referred to his eight-year-old charges as “schmucks” and made us run suicides if we messed up a pass (no matter that our baby hands could barely grip the ball). That experience set my expectations for athletics, and over the years I grew used to people telling me to run faster, to swim harder and that if you aren’t vomiting, you aren’t working. And then I stopped playing sports, and soon the most pain I could bear was walking up the hill to Yates.
Two of my other friends, both former athletes, felt the same way. If we didn’t act immediately, we were doomed to a life of Pilates and step aerobics. Soccer was our savior. We pulled together a team and showed up for the first game with rings on our fingers and bells on our toes, ready to make it rain. The other team could sense our intimidation-they didn’t show and we won by default. This tactic worked for our next match as well, and soon we had bluffed our way right into the Georgetown Intramural Soccer Playoffs. I could almost smell the gold medal.
The next team showed up. They called soccer ‘futbol,’ wore cleats and argued with the referee from the first call of the game. For the next hour or so, our casual soccer society transformed into a sweaty conglomeration of focused footballers. People yelled, got turf burn, scored, argued and bled a little. It was wonderful. By the end of the match, the bizarrely satisfying mixture of ragged breath and muscle ache was universal on our squad.
For those keeping track, we lost the game, and with it our shot at those coveted “Intramural Champs” tee-shirts sported with pride by many a Hoya proudly strutting into the gym to ‘get big’ for next year’s championship. Though the loss was disappointing and the reffing absurd (I know everyone blames them, but these were text-messaging during play), my year-long streak of weak-mindedness was finally broken, along with the hold of the elliptical.
Vive le futbol.
