I have a bold statement to make about my athletic skills. When it comes to playing a game of catch with a football or baseball, I am not a liability.
Now, when it comes to actually playing sports, not just slingin’ a ball back and forth Field of Dreams style, I have some bad news.
My career in youth league sports was a mixed bag of both failure and disappointment. Now, I did run for three touchdowns in an eight-game season in fifth grade, but aside from that, my statlines were shitty. Other than the intangibles, like acute anxiety and intrusive thoughts of getting booed by my dad, I didn’t have much to offer. For the most part, I can function alright with some OCD quirks, but I like having personal space, so slamming against random dude-bodies in a blur of motion is the opposite of comfort for me. My comfort zone is a bit of a diva.
Plus, I’m five-foot-eight and I weigh a buck-thirty-five. I’d love to hit a baseball 500 feet or windmill dunk on you, but that ain’t happening. In the case of athletes, I admire what I am not.
Having said all this, how did I ever rise the ranks to become a one-time sub on a bar league volleyball team? And how did I ensure that this challenge to my comfort zone was going to be a disaster?
Well, back in the summer of 2011, I was part of a big group of friends. Before folks in the tribe got married or divorced, had kids or moved away, and before I just got older and weirder, we all used to meet up a lot. One ideal spot to hang out was The Shop, which was shorthand for the worksite of my friend Cal’s family-owned painting business. Doors, cabinets, and dressers get painted at The Shop, and an abundance of tools, supplies, and paint buckets are stored within the spacious building. More importantly, for hangout purposes, a plot of land the size of a football field sprawled out behind The Shop. At the center of the finely mowed field, we set up a volleyball net.
Several times that summer, as many as a dozen of us met up at The Shop. We brought coolers of refreshments, slapped burger patties on the grill, cranked up some tunes, shot the shit, and sometimes even managed to play volleyball.
During games, my beercan was my faithful spectator sitting in the grass a few steps out of bounds. I’d walk across the line to enjoy a sip while the others debated what the score was. Between games I’d light up a Camel Blue and try to make someone laugh. Hypothetically, I might have tried a little something that’s now legal in half the States and rhymes with “dot” and “parijuana.” This is what I associated with volleyball. Not super proud of that, but in my 20s I had a lot of shitheadedness to get out of my system, and I had a lot of fun. At 40, I know that fun could have led to tragedy and trauma. I was lucky.
As the weeks went by, I became decent at thumping the ball over the net or setting up a tall asshole who could spike it. I later learned that I volleyballed with inherent fundamental flaws, but the beautiful thing was that no one at The Shop cared. Even better, I did comedy bits. My favorite routine was the Trash Talker, which I did with my friend Ian.
“Ian, you best get ready for some trash talk.”
“Yeah?”
“Yyyup. Nick is my name and trash talking is my game.”
“Whoa! Easy, man.”
“Hey Ian, knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“The world’s greatest trash talker, that’s who.”
“Ouch!”
“I tried to warn ya. You know your Mama asked me to stop talking trash? And I respectfully declined.”
“No! That’s just mean.”
I’d laugh a lot, enjoy conversations, get some exercise and a nice buzz, then ride my bike home, sticking to the sidewalk, basking in the quiet breeze of summer in slow motion. For almost a whole summer, I thought volleyball was pretty great.
Then in mid-August, I got a text from Cal. That Thursday night, his volleyball team was shorthanded. They’d have to forfeit their game at a bar called The Press Box if they couldn’t find a sub. And no, he added, I wasn’t their first choice, and yes, they were desperate.
I was flattered. V-ball on a weekday? Whoa, I was moving up in the world. I didn’t even know myself anymore, and I wanted to excitedly embrace this stranger.
Cal was like, “So… that’s a yes?”
He and his wife Ophelia picked me up at 6:30. I was cheerful, unaware that I was on my way to botch volleyball. What’s worse, I didn’t exactly set myself up for success. As we drove to the bar, I accepted a sample of something that rhymes with “deed” and “banabis.” I’ve since learned that this choice does not help my anxiety in busy public settings, but at the time I was collecting data for that rather long experiment.
So, my mind was swarming more so than soothed as we entered the Press Box. We met up with our teammates. The place was packed. I felt claustrophobic, and yet I wanted a beer, so I did that awful squirm-move to fit between two frowning barflies on stools. I had the nervous face of a man the bartender will always serve last. Mercifully, I got my beer, my sad lil’ pacifier. I turned around and cringed as a Luke Bryan song blared on the jukebox. I hate to shout to be heard, so my social skills went to hell. V-ball was off to a rough start.
Our group moved to the sand volleyball court, where the open space gave me relief. I looked through the net and didn’t recognize anyone on the other team. I’m a lot more shy around strangers, so that meant I’d be having no fun doing the Trash Talker bit. Dammit.
There was also a referee perched in one of those tall, high-and-mighty stands. That was different from The Shop too. The ref was a thin blonde in a baggy Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt. She wore a stone-faced expression, and with my stoned brain, I had visions of Medusa turning a man into rock. I even waved at her with a bashful half-smile, like “I get that you’re more than a judge, you’re a human being too,” to no avail. Judges gotta judge; they don’t gotta smile.
We took our spots on the court. I dug my bare feet into the lukewarm sand, gnarling the grains anxiously with my toes. The game started.
Suddenly, a spinning white sphere arched over the net to me. I got in position, made a “V” with my outstretched arms, and did my typical thrust-up to loft the ball back to the other team.
The ref blew her whistle: “Shhreeeeet!”
“Lifting!” she said. Whatever the hell that meant, the opposition got a point.
“Lifting?” I said. “What does that mean?”
The ref turned her head away. The folks on the other side of the net seemed to take my question like it was good news.
My friend Ophelia tried to help. She said to me, “She’s basically saying… just don’t punch it up so much.”
“But I got it over the net that way,” I said. “Like, isn’t that the point of the game?”
Ophelia tilted her head and bit her lip. She gave me a “yes and no, you’re smart but dumb, I feel for you but now we’re gonna lose” kind of a look.
“Just try to make your hands more steady,” she said.
I guess that was good advice.
But it was never gonna fucking happen.
When the ball next found its way to me, I thumped it up and over. It was all instinct, desire, and a refusal to listen, baby.
“Shhreeeeet!” the whistle shrieked.
“Lifting!” cried the worst living thing in the universe.
“Dude!” I said helplessly.
We kept losing points to me and that judgey whistle. Ian came up to me in an effort to explain the rule.
“Thanks, man,” I said.
“So, do you get it?” he asked.
“No.”
In 2023, I just did an online search on the subject. Here’s what I found in a section titled:
“Avoiding the Dreaded Lift.”
Dreaded! Because it’s not a fun and relaxing game of V-ball without a sense of soul-torturing dread.
“Being called for a lift can be frustrating and embarrassing.”
I’m pretty sure the author was at the Press Box that night watching me.
“But it can be avoided using proper mechanics anytime you’re touching the ball. Proper defensive posture, passing platforms, and setting hand placement can prevent most lift calls from ever occurring.”
Proper mechanics?! Are we fixing a car for the King of England or are we trying to get a ball over a damn net?
“Focusing on strength training can also prevent the movements made out of weakness that result in a lift.”
OK, let’s stop there. I didn’t come to this “What is Lifting?” page to be insulted. Weakness. Lifters are notorious for their weakness. Ouch. Look, I do have thin, bony wrists. My wrists are six-and-half inches around, so maybe I do need a little extra oomph at the point of impacting a V-ball.
But I still gotta love myself and I don’t need to feel inferior because of this stupid game people only watch for the hot bikini butts.
Back on the court, I was being targeted as the weak link by the opposition. They were pointing at me, as if to say, “There he is. The guy who sucks. Found him again.”
What happened next was my most positive play of the match, as far as influencing the score goes. It was the enemy’s serve, and because of me, our team regained the serve.
But, there are more details to add.
As usual, the flyin’ Wilson came towards me. I was in the back corner, and soon realized it might land out of bounds. In a second, I glanced down, spotted the boundary line, looked up, and assessed that Wilson was going to barely land out of bounds. I was delighted to know I was not going to touch the ball and risk being whistled this time. I let it go.
And the ball drilled a kid in the face. The boy was only five or six. He hollered in pain. Tears welled in his eyes. He gave me a look meant for a monster.
“Jesse!” a woman screamed.
It was his mother. She must have been among the small crowd of spectators at one of the tables behind us, and apparently she let her son roam. The mom ran to the boy in distress and swept him into her arms to console him.
Jesse’s gaze made me feel like a monster, while his mom’s gaze made me feel like a monster who would soon be set on fire for child abuse. The scorn in her stink-eye may have caused stink waves of shame to radiate from my body—I’m not sure.
I could have returned the favor of pointing a finger at someone on the other side of the net—some tall asshole in a Brewers shirt who had turned away to twiddle his thumbs, the man who launched the flyin’ Wilson that hit the kid in the face—but I didn’t. At that point I was so wrecked with failure and guilt that I could only apologize.
“Sorry!” I said. “Ooh, yeah… Sorry. Look, I’m sorry.”
The angry mom and sobbing boy gave no reply. They only stared at me, then she slowly made her way out of the volleyball area, back towards the main bar.
We were only halfway through losing that match. A few more whistles for lifting were going to ring out that night.
Cal broke the stunned silence. He burst out laughing.
“Holy shit!” he chuckled.
A few others joined him. Somewhere between 20 minutes and 20 hours later, the most humiliating game of bar league volleyball ever played was over.
I didn’t speak until the car ride home. Devastated in the backseat, I had to clear the air.
“So here’s the thing with lifting…” I said. “I still don’t get it.”
