Climbing over the side railing, I jumped to the steps and started booking it upward. The rest of my half of the soccer team chugged behind me, worn out from the last hour and a half of the across-town scavenger hunt. Our nemesis – the other half of the soccer team – struggled up the stairs in front of us.
After sixty two stairs, I had to stop and catch my breath. Putting my hands over my head, I looked up at the sky while slowly walking up more stairs. The beaming sun leached the sweat from my skin, not helping me regain any energy.
Before we even knew about the hunt, it was exciting. The coach had kept it a secret until the day of, only saying that she had something “special” planned. Then she’d smiled deviously.
That day, less people showed up for practice than usual. But still, our coach split us up into two teams, handed out the paper with the scavenger hunt items on it, and explained the rules. The most important rule was that we couldn’t split up to gather the things we needed. We’d be safer that way, plus we’d get more exercise.
To ramp up the competition, our coach noted in passing that there was a prize involved for the team that got the most correct answers the fastest. True to her nature, she wouldn’t tell us what the prize was no matter how much we pestered her, only saying that she had to order it online and it was going to be expensive for her. Then she let us loose in Morgantown.
The two teams headed different ways, not wanting to make each other feel like they were cheating of their rival’s answers. Once we were a good distance away, my team skimmed over the list. Then we headed off to find out what year the coliseum was built, acquire a pen, and get two signatures from employees at a Mexican restaurant.
After about halfway through the second part of the list, we realized that we’d forgotten the pen, so I ran downstairs in the building we were in to ask the administrator there if I could borrow one. She refused. I considered just grabbing the unopened ten-pack of pens lying on the counter, but then decided against it. I found one elsewhere.
After running up and down hills, dodging pedestrians, and bothering people with questions about what year Colonel Sanders founded KFC (before thinking it through, we also asked what state KFC was founded in) we headed toward the last challenge: counting the steps on the staircase to Law Hill.
“A hundred and twenty eight!” my teammate gasped as she made it to the top. “That’s what I got. Anyone get something different?”
The rest of us shook our heads, so she scribbled down the number on a wrinkled and slightly damp answer sheet. While the coach tallied the results, the team lounged around at the top of the stairs, drinking water like addicts.
The half of the team I was on ended up winning, but it wasn’t until months later, right before the championship game of the very last tournament of the season, that we got our prize.
You can say that they were just a bunch of white t-shirts, but to us it was more than that, because they had a meaning only we knew about. On the front in gold and blue lettering were the words “West Virginia United Soccer Club”, and on the back was a quote. “It is the team, not the individual, who is the ultimate champion.” Which meant, of course, that our whole team got them, not just the half that won the scavenger hunt. Nobody minded, because it felt right that way.
With Mia Hamm’s words in our minds, we went out and played our last game together, as a team.
No comments:
Post a Comment