Short Story #2: Tryouts


“Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God.”
My pulse was racing so fast I could feel my wrists throbbing.
My palms were so sweaty they glistened.
My breathing was completely out of control.
I felt a little nauseous.
“You in the red T-shirt, you’re up!”
I swallowed, terrified. My tongue seemed far too big for my mouth, my throat far too dry. Stepping up to the serving line I rolled the ball hand my hand, shook the hair out of my eyes, focused, and tried to ignore the pounding in my ears. I threw the ball up in the air, and hit it.
My shoulders sagged. I had hit the ball with the heel of my hand, and instead of a nice hard serve, the ball seemed to hang in the air forever. It was nowhere near good enough.
I should explain. I was at the Varsity Boys volleyball tryouts for Robert E. Lee High School, a school that’s pretty serious about volleyball. There was over 100 guys at this tryout alone, and newcomers very rarely made the team. Especially newcomers who messed up their serve at tryouts.
On the first day we were told to individually demonstrate basic skills (serving, passing, setting, spiking, and blocking), and I felt I did okay at passing (My old coach was a fan of the “Hit balls at your kids as fast as you can, as hard as you can, for as much of practice as you can” approach). My spiking and setting were pretty good too, so I started to feel a little more confident. I’m a tall guy, about 6’2”, so blocking comes pretty naturally too; but serving . . . jeez.
Despite my height, I was one of the youngest trying out (being only a sophomore). I was absolutely petrified. All the others trying out seemed to be lot bigger than me, and a LOT older.
The second day of practice we were put into teams of four and played against each other. I was with a skinny, devilishly fast sophomore called JD; Rick, a junior with arms reminiscent of a gorilla, and two seniors with facial hair. A LOT of facial hair. I didn’t ask for their names.
Thanks to some unbelievable hitting from Hulk #1 and a terrifying run of serves from Hulk #2, we won spectacularly easily, and the coaches looked impressed. They told us the team lists would be up in the next couple of weeks.
Now if you think try-outs are hard, you should try the waiting that comes AFTER the try-outs. The nerve-wracking, aggravating, terrifying wait. Every night the expectation just builds and builds for the next day. Only to find the notice board empty, and have your hopes dashed all over again. It’s . . .unbelievable frustrating.
Tryouts were a week a ago, and I’m still waiting.
I’ll get back to you on how it turns out.