Battle Wounds

So once again, another year of intramural sports and another great story to come away with. I don't know what it is about intramurals that just makes people not think clearly.

I was captain this year. That's not really anything fancy, all I do is add people to the roster online, call the coin-toss at the beginning of the game, and e-mail or text everyone to make sure they are coming and we have enough girls.

We had a typical "ward" team. A lot of people signed up and each game we were worried if we were going to have enough players. We had a few key players that helped us out, and by some miracle we made it to the second round of the playoffs. Yes, we just had to win a single game to get there, but that was the first game we had actually won.

The second tournament game was a different story. We got the trash kicked out of us, so much so that they swapped out their goalie to see if she could try and score a goal. This is really where my story begins.

So this goalie is the typical goalie build.... big, broad, strong. I was defending her and another girl. I got tangled up with the other girl and got around her just in time to block the goalie's shot on goal. It was kind of like the movies, where you see this massive girl wind up, and then the camera zooms in close on my face only to see the terror. Ok, I wasn't terrified, I was glad that I could actually do my job as a defender... that was at least until the ball made contact with my thigh...

So this ball comes flying at me with the power that only a goalie could deliver; like she was literally trying to send that ball from her goal to ours. Instead of it making it there my thigh got in the way, and the ball shot straight up in the air. As soon as the ball made contact I said "Owe! That REALLY hurt." Then I started looking around, and I couldn't see the ball anywhere. I said, "I don't even know where the ball is!" That's when I saw it coming back down from the atmosphere. It HURT!

Needless to say we lost the game, and that was the last one of the season for us. So I went home and looked down at my leg.... only to find a soccer ball there!!!!!
I woke up the next morning, and it was still there! This game was on November 18th, and it was just within the past week that the imprint finally disappeared. Here is a progression of the lovely mark of courage!
I think this was the next day. The redness had gone down.
You can see the bruise starting to form in an arch around the top of the soccer ball imprint. This one is the day after that.... still have some progression.
You can see some green-ness forming, maybe some purple spots. I had some definite purple spots, etc. This was the last picture I took. The colors on my computer monitor don't really show the full effect of it, but you get the idea.
That goalie has no idea what happened and I'm sure she's forgotten me, but I will remember her. I remembered her especially at first, every time Dane would reach over and squeeze my leg while driving in the car or eating at the dinner table. He even trained himself to not grab my leg, and would do periodic checks.... "Does it hurt when I do this?" I think he was relieved when I finally gave him the green light and was back to normal.