新編大學(xué)英語(yǔ)第三冊(cè)u(píng)nit7 Text C: Playing to Win

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UNIT 7 AFTER-CLASS READING 2; New College English (III)

Playing to Win

1 My daughter is an athlete. Nowadays, this statement won't strike many parents as unusual, but it does me. Until her freshman year in high school, Ann was not really interested in sports of any kind. When she played, she didn't like to move around, often dropped the ball, and had the annoying habit of laughing on the field or the court.

2 Indifference combined with another factor that was not a good sign for a sports career. Ann was growing up to be beautiful. By the eighth grade, nature and dental work had produced a 5-foot-8-inch, 125-pound, brown-eyed beauty with a wonderful smile. People told her, too. And as many young women know, it is considered a satisfactory accomplishment to be pretty and stay pretty. Then you can simply sit still and enjoy the unconditional positive reward. Ann loved the attention and didn't consider it insulting when she was awarded "Best Hair," female category, in the eighth-grade yearbook.

3 So it came as a surprise when she became an athlete. The first indication that athletic indifference had ended came when she joined the high-school cross-country team. She signed up for the team in early September and came third within three days. Not only that. After one of those 3.1-mile races up and down hill on a rainy November afternoon, Ann came home muddy and bedraggled. Her hair was wet and the mascara she had applied so carefully that morning ran in dark circles under her eyes. This is it, I thought. Wait until Lady Astor sees herself in the mirrors. But the kid with the best hair in eighth-grade went on to finish the season and subsequently letter in cross-country, soccer, basketball, and football.

4 "I love sports," she tells anyone who will listen. So do I, though my midlife quest for a doctorate leaves me little time for either playing or watching. My love of sports is bound up with the goals in my life and my hopes for my three daughters. I have begun to hear the message of sports. It is very different from many messages that women receive about living, and I think it is good.

5 My husband, for example, talked to Ann differently when he realized that she was a serious competitor and not just someone who wanted to get in shape so she'd look good in a prom dress. Be aggressive, he'd advise. Go for the ball. Be intense.

6 Be intense. She came in for some of the most severe criticism from her dad when, during basketball season, her intensity decreased. You're pretending to play hard, he said. You like it on the bench? Do you like to watch while your teammates play?

7 I would think, how is this kid reacting to such advice? For years, she'd been told at home, at school, by countless advertisements. "Be quiet. Be good. Be still." Teachers had reported that Ann was too talkative, not obedient enough, too superficial. I had dressed her up in frilly dresses and told her not to get dirty. Ideals of femininity in ads were still, quiet, cool females whose empty expressionless faces made them look elegant and mature. How can any adolescent girl know what she's up against? Have you ever really noticed intensity? It is neither quiet nor good. And it's definitely not pretty.

8 In the end, her intensity revived. At halftime, she'd look for her father, and he would come out of the bleachers to discuss tough defense, finding the open player, improving her jump shot. I'd watch them at the edge of the court, a tall man and a tall girl, talking about how to play.

9 Not that dangers don't lurk for the females of her generation. I occasionally run this horror show in my own mental movie theater: An overly polite but handsome lawyerlike drone of a young man sees my Ann. Hmmm, he says unconsciously to himself, good gene pool, and wouldn't she go well with my BMW and the condo? Then I see Ann with a great new hairdo kissing the drone "goodbye honey" and setting off to the nearest mall to spend money with her beautiful friends.

10 But the other night she came home from softball tryouts at 6 in the evening. The dark circles under her eyes were from exhaustion, not makeup. "I tried too hard today," she says. "I feel like I'm going to be sick."

11 After she has revived, she explains. She wants to play a particular position. There is competition for it. "I can't let anybody else get my spot," she says. "I've got to prove that I can do it." Later, we find out that she has not gotten the much-wanted third-base position, but she will start with the varsity team. My husband explains to her how coaches often work and tells her to keep trying. "You are doing fine," he says. She gets that I-am-going-to-keep-trying look on her face.

12 Of course, Ann doesn't realize the changes she has made, the power of her self-definition. "I'm an athlete, Ma," she tells me when I suggest participation in the school play or the yearbook. But she has really caused us to rethink our views of existence: her youngest sisters who consider sports a natural activity for females, her father whose advocacy of women has increased, and me. Because when I doubt my own abilities, I say to myself, get intense, Margaret. Do you like to sit on the bench?

13 And my intensity revives.

14 I am not suggesting that participation in sports is the answer for all young women. It is not easy the losing, jealousy, raw competition, and intense personal criticism of performance.

15 And I don't wish to imply that the sports scene is a morality play either. Girls' sports can be funny. You can't forget that out on that field are a bunch of people who know the meaning of the word cute. During one game, I noticed that Ann had a blue ribbon tied on her ponytail, and it dawned on me that every girl on the team had an identical bow. Somehow I can't picture the Celtics gathered in the locker room of the Boston Garden agreeing to wear the same color sweatbands.

16 What has struck me, amazed me, and made me hold my breath in wonder and in hope is both the ideal of sport and the reality of a young girl not afraid to do her best.

17 I watched her bringing ball up the court. We yell encouragement from the stands, though I know she doesn't hear us. Her face is red with exertion, and her body is concentrated in the task. She dribbles, draws the defense to her, passes, runs. A teammate passes the ball back to her. They've beaten the other team's defense. She heads towards the hoop. Her father watches her; her sisters watch her; I watch her. And I think, drive, Ann, drive.