Patrick McGraw

My relationship with sports is a fairly typical one for an effeminate kid growing up in the 70s and 80s.

Short story, I grew to hate them.

And being a painfully shy kid didn't make things easier.

The first time I was called a faggot was in fifth grade.

It was because of how I walk and talk, so gender policing at its finest.

When I went to junior high, I almost instantly stopped eating in the cafeteria because it was just easier for me to eat alone by my locker than navigate so many people.

But my locker in seventh grade was just down the hall from the gym.

And the 10th grade boys, their gym class ended during my lunch period.

They had to wait in this long hallway of the locker room

behind the door until the bell rang.

But one day, a few of them crossed the threshold.

They grabbed a fire extinguisher and started spraying me with it, calling me a faggot.

To me, these were the people who played sports, so why would I want to play sports with them?

So I quit tennis, I stopped golfing.

Football was a non-starter.

Later, when I came out, sports would creep back into my life.

Running in my 20s, hiking in my 30s, but these were things I could do on my own.

Team sports, they didn't reenter my horizon until I moved to Portland in my 40s.

The cafe I used to go to to read played all the European soccer matches.

And after months of sitting amongst the fans as they watched their favorite teams, I got addicted.