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fandomhigh2010-07-06 10:30 pm
cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2010-07-06 10:30 pm
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Contact Sports: Building Character (And Possibly . . .) - Gym, Wednesday, 6th Period (Class 1)
There were stations set up around the gym today, all of them with various types of sporting equipment arranged in a haphazard kind of display. The guy standing in the midcourt circle of the basketball court was six feet of messy brown hair and blue eyes in loose warmup pants and a Fandom High Gremlins t-shirt, bouncing a basketball idly as he waited for the students to show up. (He didn't really look that much older than them, especially with the way he was grinning.) As he kept an eye on the door, watching people trickle in, he seemed to be counting to himself.
"Hey, guys," he finally said once he was pretty sure everyone was present. "Welcome to Contact Sports. What're contact sports? That's pretty broad, actually. We're not just talking about sports where people get tackled or bodyslammed here. Those're collision sports. Anything where you might bump into other players, or have to hit a ball with a stick of some kind, that's a contact sport. I'm Sam Anders, or just Anders to you, Fandom High class of 2008, and someone was crazy enough to let me come back here and do this. This," he went on, executing a neat little crossover dribble, "is teaching you guys a little bit about a few different sports, maybe give you an appreciation for 'em or a new way to look at 'em. See, when I first got here, I was just a kid from the Colonies who didn't want to do anything more with my life than go pro as a Pyramid star. I'd been playing it all my life, dreaming about it, I had all the posters, the team jerseys, I could recite twenty years' worth of player stats at you, you name it."
He dribbled the ball between his legs, back and forth, then bounced it up high and caught it between both hands with a loud smack that echoed off the gym walls. "And then I got here. And a couple weeks into my first semester, way back in the day before we had anything fancy like the reserves you have now, we got hit by a zombie attack. I mean tons of 'em, man. So what? You're thinking this story ends with me taking out a dozen zombies or something?" Anders laughed, spun the basketball between his fingers, and went back to dribbling it. "No frakking way. When they flooded the school with hot water to take out the zombies, I was the freaked out guy who ended up stuck in a shelf in Special Collections and needed to be rescued. That was my first Fandom invasion. Not really a story you want to tell the press in an interview. Yeah, yeah, I know. What's that have to do with anything? That's what this class is about, see. It took me a while, but I figured out that everything I'd been practicing all my life wasn't useless in a place like this. Now, I'm not a really a fighter. I've picked some stuff up, but that's not who I am. Some of you, you're probably not fighters either. Maybe some of you are, I don't know. But you're here in Fandom, and you've probably gotten warned by now that the invasions happen."
Anders stopped dribbling the ball again, his expression turning serious. "I'm not here to tell you all to get out there on the front lines and fight next time it happens. What I am here to do, besides show you all a few new games to play, is give you a head start on what took me almost eighteen years to figure out in a way that made sense. They say sports build character; it's true. What're some of the things you can learn from it? Physical fitness. That's one thing. Another one's hand-eye coordination." He dribbled the basketball once, pivoted, and took a high arcing shot that rattled around the rim a couple of times before falling through the net. "Footwork. Balance. Reflexes. Being aware of who's around you, what they're doing, whether or not they're on your team. Teamwork. This is all stuff that's good for you just in terms of your physical health, makes you a better athlete. It translates to other things, too, and that's part of what we're gonna look at in this workshop."
He gestured at the gym stations. "For today, though, since I haven't really had time to get a syllabus together yet, we're gonna go with the old classic and do introductions. Name, grade, favorite sport if you have one, or one you're interested in. Why you're here if you're up to sharing that. Then you have the rest of this period to goof off and play with some of the gear we have here. Bonus points -- not that I'm keeping track today -- if you can come up with a few practical non-competitive uses for some of the skills in these games."
Clapping his hands then pointing at a student at random, Anders announced, "How about let's start with you?"
[OOC: OCD is up. No Cylon uprisings for you today.]
"Hey, guys," he finally said once he was pretty sure everyone was present. "Welcome to Contact Sports. What're contact sports? That's pretty broad, actually. We're not just talking about sports where people get tackled or bodyslammed here. Those're collision sports. Anything where you might bump into other players, or have to hit a ball with a stick of some kind, that's a contact sport. I'm Sam Anders, or just Anders to you, Fandom High class of 2008, and someone was crazy enough to let me come back here and do this. This," he went on, executing a neat little crossover dribble, "is teaching you guys a little bit about a few different sports, maybe give you an appreciation for 'em or a new way to look at 'em. See, when I first got here, I was just a kid from the Colonies who didn't want to do anything more with my life than go pro as a Pyramid star. I'd been playing it all my life, dreaming about it, I had all the posters, the team jerseys, I could recite twenty years' worth of player stats at you, you name it."
He dribbled the ball between his legs, back and forth, then bounced it up high and caught it between both hands with a loud smack that echoed off the gym walls. "And then I got here. And a couple weeks into my first semester, way back in the day before we had anything fancy like the reserves you have now, we got hit by a zombie attack. I mean tons of 'em, man. So what? You're thinking this story ends with me taking out a dozen zombies or something?" Anders laughed, spun the basketball between his fingers, and went back to dribbling it. "No frakking way. When they flooded the school with hot water to take out the zombies, I was the freaked out guy who ended up stuck in a shelf in Special Collections and needed to be rescued. That was my first Fandom invasion. Not really a story you want to tell the press in an interview. Yeah, yeah, I know. What's that have to do with anything? That's what this class is about, see. It took me a while, but I figured out that everything I'd been practicing all my life wasn't useless in a place like this. Now, I'm not a really a fighter. I've picked some stuff up, but that's not who I am. Some of you, you're probably not fighters either. Maybe some of you are, I don't know. But you're here in Fandom, and you've probably gotten warned by now that the invasions happen."
Anders stopped dribbling the ball again, his expression turning serious. "I'm not here to tell you all to get out there on the front lines and fight next time it happens. What I am here to do, besides show you all a few new games to play, is give you a head start on what took me almost eighteen years to figure out in a way that made sense. They say sports build character; it's true. What're some of the things you can learn from it? Physical fitness. That's one thing. Another one's hand-eye coordination." He dribbled the basketball once, pivoted, and took a high arcing shot that rattled around the rim a couple of times before falling through the net. "Footwork. Balance. Reflexes. Being aware of who's around you, what they're doing, whether or not they're on your team. Teamwork. This is all stuff that's good for you just in terms of your physical health, makes you a better athlete. It translates to other things, too, and that's part of what we're gonna look at in this workshop."
He gestured at the gym stations. "For today, though, since I haven't really had time to get a syllabus together yet, we're gonna go with the old classic and do introductions. Name, grade, favorite sport if you have one, or one you're interested in. Why you're here if you're up to sharing that. Then you have the rest of this period to goof off and play with some of the gear we have here. Bonus points -- not that I'm keeping track today -- if you can come up with a few practical non-competitive uses for some of the skills in these games."
Clapping his hands then pointing at a student at random, Anders announced, "How about let's start with you?"
[OOC: OCD is up. No Cylon uprisings for you today.]
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