By Allison and Natalie Fitts

We all have different talents. Some are artistic. Some are musical. Others are athletic. These are our athletic (and not so athletic) endeavors.

I’ve never been a magnificent athlete. I’ve tried many different sports–softball, basketball, soccer, volleyball, track and field, and gymnastics–but I have excelled in none of them. Certainly not for lack of trying.

I myself have never been a magnificent athlete either, but I am definitely better than Natalie. I have done all of the same sports as her, as well as lacrosse and cross country. Both of our sporting careers began with YMCA t-ball. In this first sport of mine, I learned two important things: 1) I really liked the sport (I played softball until junior year) and 2) I mastered the pre-game ritual of “getting energy”. This process entailed me running around in order to get enough energy to play the game.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CQdFaWkv_U

In case you missed it, at the very end of that video, Allison does say to me, “I’m getting energy, not you.” She had many selfish moments like this, but that is a different topic for a different day. Obviously, I did need to get energy in order to be an adequate cheerleader, which I have gotten used to being after many years of softball (although, once I was old enough to stay home by myself, I opted out of most games).

By most games, you mean all.

Anyway, after I played t-ball in the summer, I moved onto soccer in the fall.

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One of the teams I was on during my extensive soccer career never scored a goal…the entire season. Actually, I did score a goal once…for the other team. But that’s beside the point. My coach promised that if we scored one goal, she would buy us each giant Hershey’s bars and Dr. Peppers. We never scored the goal, but we did get the food.

I feel it’s safe to say that the snacks after the game were the highlights of sports from ages 5 to 10. The classic post-game snacks were Rice Krispie Treats, Kool-Aid juicers and Gushers. All major food groups were represented.

A big part of our early athletic teams was having our dad as a coach. His coaching career including t-ball, basketball, softball and soccer. He was obviously harder on us than anyone else, but that’s to be expected. I wasn’t always pleased when he told me to run faster or get my head in the game, but I knew he was trying to help so I took his advice. Natalie didn’t take instruction from dad quite as well…

First I’d like to start by saying, it was just a moment of weakness. I’ve put in my past, but my family likes to bring it up often so I might as well tell my side of the story…

It was a typical fall evening, slightly overcast. According to my dad, I wasn’t listening to one of the other coaches, so he pulled me aside to have a talk. I had heard enough, so I tried to kick him. He intercepted my leg mid-kick, and I fell straight on my butt. I grabbed the first thing I saw and threw it at him. The first thing I saw happened to be a rock (basically a pebble). Needless to say, he got mad after it hit him square on the eyebrow. But as I said earlier, I was young and it’s in my past.

That was the nice version. The very precise and very true way of saying it is that Natalie came up firing with a piece of Stonehenge in tow.

Nowadays, I play sports for the fun of it, so the intense pre-game ritual of “getting energy” is no longer necessary. I want to make a special shoutout to my CYO basketball team, the Shewolves, who will hopefully be taking the championship this year.

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I no longer play any sports (unless Just Dance 2 on the Wii and the occasional yoga session in my living room counts), but I still love watching sports. I usually check the sports section of the Kansas City Star to see what my favorite teams are up to. I would be on all the varsity teams at STA, but I was worried people would be too intimidated by me, so I opted out. However, I did pass all my skills along to Savannah Trujillo and Emily Wemhoff (former grade school teammates), so whenever you watch them play, just remember that it’s basically like me playing.

Fellow STA sisters, please remember to keep applying to be featured on our Sister Shoutout segment here.  Until next time, see ya sistas.