When I didn’t make the school soccer team, I joined cross-country instead, using the endurance I built on the field to race for miles. I felt like I had been plugged in energy buzzed through my limbs. I still remember my very first game, bunch-ball though it probably was. It wasn’t for lack of love, though, or competitiveness on my part. The sport was so popular when I was growing up that I never even made a school team, despite playing from age 6 to 18-the competition was that fierce. In my hometown in suburban Seattle, it was soccer.
This understanding manifested in many communities as a kind of frenzy when it came to certain girls sports.
