Your worst moment playing sports

I saw in the softball chants thread that (alley was it?) went through an 0-20 soccer season once without scoring a goal.

Yikes! That is pretty bad and I can't top. But here was my worst moment.

Summer of 1993 (ready for my junior year in high school), my club soccer team makes the trip to Blaine, Minn. (Twin Cities 'burb) for the USA Cup. Huge youth tournament with teams from all over the world. Usually, the tournament committee tries to get one international team in every group, even if it's just a Canadian team.

Well, this particular year, we play a team called Ensign Select, from England. It's our first game, too. Before the game, a few guys come over to us and start shooting the breeze with us. Our team was called Manchester United, and they thought it was pretty cool. I was a captain, and during the coin flip, this British team showered us with gifts. Flag, pins, patches, etc. Pretty neat stuff.

Well, I take my position at sweeper, a little nervous playing a British team and considering we sucked pretty bad. (not 0-20 bad, but bad nonetheless)

30 seconds into the game, this dude rips a half-volley from 35 yards out that gets no more than three feet off the ground. It hits the post and goes out for a goal kick.

"Oh ... shit." was all I could think.

After playing two 30 minute halves, we had been beaten 14-0. And the nice guys before the game? Gone. One of our forwards ran into this 6-5 Prince-lookalike, and he said, "Oops, I'm sorry." The British dude replied, "You should be sorry you fuckin' cock." (He said 'cock' like 'coke')

Had we not executed our offside trap successfully about 15-20 times (AAAAIIIEE! BLOODY OFFSIDE TRAP!) it would have been 20-0.

The thing was, we were so outclassed that we were actually laughing and having a good time out there, which probably pissed the Brits off even more.

14-0 in only 60 minutes. Ouch. Never forget that ass-whippin'.

 

About 8 years ago, we were playing in a very good hoops league in Basketball City in Manhattan. Most teams had a couple of guys who played college ball. I was at my hoops peak, and I was no better than the 7th man on my squad. We play the number 1 team in the league and our regulars start dropping like flies. 6'9" center -- out. 6'5" point forward who played in a couple of NCAA tourney games -- out. Our 3 through 6 guys -- out. Our 8-10 guys -- out. There is a huge penalty for a forfeit and we couldn't take the penalty if wanted to make the playoffs. So we cobbled together what we could get. It was me playing center on defense and point guard on offense. We had a guy from my office who was 5'3" and his twin brother. We got a senior guy from my office who was about 50 years old and rarely hit the backboard on an outside shot. And our 5th was a guy who was about 5'10" and 300 pounds.

The other team's starting backcourt were two kids who had played in the SEC and the Big East. Their center was about 6'8" and could jump through the roof. And they had deadly outside shooters. It was 50-3 at halftime and 81-6 when the mercy rule kicked in the a minute to go.

 

I have quite a few, but this one is the biggest:

Junior year in high school, we're playing undefeated football team, ranked #1 in the state. We're kicking their asses all over the place, but the scoreboard doesn't reflect that.
Anyway, midway through the fourth quarter, I snapped the ball over the punter's head. Other team jumps on it in the end zone for a TD. We loose 20-14.
This team went undefeated and won the state championship in its (and our) class.

 

this will not end well.

 

It only kicked in with a minute to go if your team was trailing by 20 or more. The only good news is that I scored all of the points for my team for the only time ever.

 

About 15 years ago, we're playing a one-game playoff in softball to decide who finishes second in the league and gets hardware. Top of the seventh, one out, guy on second, we're down by two. I jack one over the centerfield fence, absolutely crushed it, to tie the game. Or so I thought. I round the bases, high five a couple people en route to touching the plate only to find out the jackass on second had stopped to high five everybody on the third-base line. He literally stopped. I missed him in the scrum, passed him at home and was called out. Next guy pops out and we lose.

 

I'm going to go with tearing my rotator cuff when I was a sophomore in high school. And let this be a lesson to all those with male children -- Never let your son throw a curveball until he's at least 16.

 

Striking out as the last out to eliminate my team one year from the tournament.

I felt like crap. Thankfully, a coach from the other team immediately ran out to console me. Classy, classy moment. It wasn't the title game, so lucky for me the other side wasn't too busy celebrating.

There was another time I got popped in the gut by a point-blank shot I stopped in a soccer match, but the pain for that went away two-fold. First, the coach - when he went out to check on me - wasn't the least bit upset at me (the same guy whom I stopped the first time followed up, as he should, with an empty-netter as I was trying to grasp some hint of breath on the ground in the goal mouth). Secondly, I later heard that the same kid who scored on me was telling anyone who would listen I was the toughest keeper in the league. Small wonder I respected the guy ...

 

Tell a former SE - who considered himself quite the seamhead, to boot - that. He didn't understand why a coach of a 10-11-year-old team was upset that the opponent had a kid throwing mostly curveballs.

I know where that coach - truly one of the good guys - was coming from. Stranger yet, I knew that not being a fraction of the seamhead that my boss claimed to be ...

 

*sigh*

We do this every so often, and it still breaks my heart every time.

Scored a goal in the first period of the state hockey final.

We led 1-0 until three minutes to go in the game. Were outshooting them 30-something to about 10.

On a two on two rush, their wing cuts through the middle and the other guy tries to thread him a pass. Hits the back of his skate then our defenseman's skate and goes into the far side of the net.

With 40-some seconds to play, their wing carries around our net and tries to center the puck. It goes off our defenseman's skate and in. Same defenseman.

We lose 2-1, to a team we beat four times that season.

I've never been able to watch the tape.