supersizeme and I apparently share a life or something.
I ran track and XC, and was undefeated all through high school - although not at states, best finish there was 5th - never got the whole "peaking" thing right. I blame my coach.
my frosh year of high school, I had just moved and knew that xc was getting me zero women, so I thought I'd do football. but I was 6'something and like 140lbs. I made it through doubles and got my ass kicked every single day. never bothered to learn the offensive plays, so "when in doubt, run an out" was my motto. I was an end, so that meant that on some plays our quaterback got railed b/c I was supposed to block, but was instead downfield doing my own thing. no wonder he hated me.
then in practice we weren't allowed to actually hit the QB when on defense - as an end I could get through every time, and then I'd just stand there knowing I couldn't hit the QB, but the coach would be amazed that I always got through. he was telling the team that was impressive and we were all standing there and then someone just tackled me out of the blue. that'll show me.
so then in real games I'd get through the defense, and then just sort of stand there. one time my shoulder pads broke and spun around, and I was just standing in the middle of the field looking down at them. then I got tackled by my own teammate.
so many stories, all of them pathetic.
I later found out that the reason my teammates hated me was b/c during doubles we had to write our names on our helmets, like J. Johnson, or M. Hardy, etc etc - and mine happens to be the same as a very famous and good running back in that format - so they thought I was being cocky...
the end.