Happy To Stand On The Sidelines
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday February 6, 2008
I DON'T like sport. Strip me of citizenship. Gape in disbelief. Hiss with derision. Then send my condolences to Bec Hewitt as she serves her life sentence as a sports spectator.
Schooling instilled a dread of Thursdays, when sewing lessons featuring detached stitch were followed by equally baffling sports sessions. One afternoon in third class our teacher stopped building words and numbers on the blackboard to warn us of our first athletics carnival. We were all to enter and, even if running last or injured, finish our race. I lined up with other eight-year-olds behind the starting line. Room-to-grow sandshoes added to my awkwardness, and the young sprinters shot past me. I fell over. Teachers and pupils stared as I stood up and limped, grass-stained and alone, to the finishing line. For the next decade a variety of sports spoilt Thursdays. Other girls seemed to know all the rules, while I didn't know where to stand on any court. Or where to send a ball. Or why. Wednesdays were spent in fervent prayer for rain.Occasionally we were forced into buses and taken to athletic carnivals as spectators. Students we didn't know raced a hundred yards, two hundred yards, four hundred yards. Some races had girls leaping over hurdles along the track. "How do they do it?" asked my friend. "Why?" I wondered. "Why?" On weekends in Sydney, when the rest of the world is closed, television news consists of grown men kicking and hitting balls - and each other. They jump up on their team mates for group hugs. Why? Why shove modesty aside along with your opponents? The Olympics will be back on the screens in August, turning everyone into a sporting expert. The 1976 Games brought Nadia Comaneci swinging through the bars with the jargon of saltos, twists and pikes. Fellows on bicycles will creep slowly around a velodrome, almost stationary, looking as apathetic about racing as I am. Then swoosh, there'll be a sudden wild pedal to the finish. Who makes up these rules? I did watch a few minutes of the Australian Open. Degree of difficulty for spectators - high. "You can't buy belief," announced a commentator. Hallelujah. You can't buy belief? What did she mean? I don't get it. I went to bed.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald