The Natural

I was never much of an athlete. Sure, when I was little my tee-ball coaches would plead my mother to make me run track. There was something about a little boy zooming around milk-carton bases that gave them the divine vision that I was a born runner. Alas, I never had my talent recognized. Even though I’ve participated in track since the 6th grade, but haven’t been able to win anything beyond a participatory “pat on the back” throughout my illustrious track and field career. In fact, my greatest prize might be the nasty case of athlete’s foot I contracted during my 8th grade season. Regardless of whatever natural talent I may have possessed, it surely never showed. I’d catch thousands of footballs for fun with my friends, but when it came to game time in a flag football tournament, I’d miraculously choke. Choking would be good way to describe my failures, if I was actually athletically talented enough to compete in such events. It’s also not like I had a team depending on me, I was probably lucky if I was able to even play a few minutes in a basketball game. I was the embodiment of a bench warmer, except I was so bad that I’d never actually leave the bench. Having me as a teammate in recreational soccer meant that the one stereotypically annoying kid who always cried if he was taken out of the game always got his way. Embracing my lack of talent, though, I often made comedy of my athletic failures. My friends and coach would always joke about me making the state tournament in an event when I’d be ranked last in the district. “This is your season man! Watch out for Speedy Sanjay Satish!” I’d often hear announced in front of the whole team.

It isn’t the greatest feeling to keep drowning in failure. But at some point, you get used to it. You fail so much that it becomes normal, almost to the point where it feels weird to improve. A great anecdote is when I decided to try pole vaulting in high school. I’d heard wrestlers would be good at it, and since I wrestled the previous year, I thought It’d be a great idea! Finally, an event I might be able to compete at! Little did I know that you actually had to be good at wrestling to be good at pole vault. It was all about the athleticism, something which I definitely didn’t possess. At most practices, we never used a bar. Pole vault has a lot to do with form, so for beginners its often better to hone those skills before attempting an actual vault. I’d vault every day, often staying later than the rest of the track team. I don’t know why I thought I was pretty good, but I thought I was the next Michael Jordan. In reality, I should’ve been more concerned with knowing how bad I was. Every day I’d spring off that carbon-fiber pole, thinking I was at the top of the world when, in truth, I was barely clearing four feet off the ground (for reference, starting height at most high school meets is seven feet). My first time with the bar was no different. Unbeknownst to me, my coach put it at its lowest height, and delightfully cheered for me to “try my best!” She probably knew I wasn’t even going to come close to touching that thing, but you can’t break a kid’s heart. It’s pretty easy to guess what happened next: I didn’t clear that bar. It’s not even like I was close either, I kicked it. Kicked it right across the pit and onto the track, almost tripping our star distance runner. It was then that I realized how much I was going to humiliate myself at the first meet. Still delusional, I headed into the meet on a high. “I was going to clear the bar, I was going to clear the bar,” I repeated to myself.

As we lined up at our first meet, I eyed my competition. Sure, there were the kids in their Nike gear and special pole vault shoes, all professionals at the event. Then, there was me. A small, somewhat pudgy, short Indian kid. My name, of course, was called first. It was my first high school meet, my first shot at high school athletic prowess, and… I absolutely failed. I didn’t just miss the bar. I kicked it straight across the track. AGAIN! I was so far off the bar I don’t even know how I made it onto the pit. And that was at six feet, a whole foot lower than the actual standard starting height. As everyone after me cleared the bar I was left standing on the runway, alone. I exhausted my 3 allowed attempts not even able to clear that bar — and I never would that year. At every meet that season, and the next, and the next, I couldn’t clear that starting height. In total, there is only one meet throughout my four years of high school track for which I’ve actually recorded a mark at a meet. If you look me up on Athletic.net, my track records will show “no height” over 20 times in a row. Every meet, every season, I didn’t clear that bar. Honestly, I’m still surprised they kept me on the team — and lettered me my senior year. But hey, every team needs someone to keep up the average GPA.