Story #7: Power of Prayer

Power of Prayer

They tell me to “pray about it.” To pray about the decision that will take me from a college athlete to simply a college student. A decision that will free up my afternoons and my Saturdays that would normally be consumed by the never-ending event that is a track meet. To quit or not to quit. I quickly replace “quit” with the softer sounding, “retire.” To retire or not to retire. The answer is simple, they say – Just pray about it. I pray and I pray but my prayers drift into memories of my first track meets with my dad, learning about the discus and discovering that even though I was often picked last for gym class dodge ball, I could at least throw a discus, a shot put, or a javelin. My awkward shyness and fear of contact sport sent me running (well, running slowly) toward a throwing event that was more about individual progress than anything else.

But even throwing the discus requires more athletic coordination than I can handle. Sometimes the combination of the spinning, the torque, the whip, the grip of smooth soles is just too much. It’s too much to remember to switch your feet at the end, to start your spin with a slight hop to get the right trajectory angle at the finish, to release the discus from the index finger. Once it leaves numb hands, the act of watching it fly away as either a success or failure ends in a slight smile or shake of the head.

                 Women’s discus was included in the first Olympics of 1928. My first Olympics was in 1992. My dad would pick me up out of my soft pink crib, cradling my swaddled newborn body down to flick on the summer track and field events, watching­­­­­ Attila Horváth and his 226 foot discus throw as my watery cries subsided at two in the morning. I’m not sure why the sight of a huge Hungarian man and his discus yell calmed my week-old self.

                  So I have to pray about it, as they say. Is my time well spent if I don’t enjoy most of the practices? When does individual glory trump team success? The curse of a sport so individual where it doesn’t really matter if your teammates do well or not and it doesn’t really matter if you have a team. No longer the awkward middle schooler terrified of gym class team sports, I long to work together with teammates on a field, not to travel to track meets only to feel as if I’m competing alone. But in that strange sport of track where you are on a team but you don’t work together to score goals, I am competing alone. I have no one to blame for a bad throw but myself. I’m torn between my retirement and my love for the discus, an event that is more than just an obscure Frisbee-like object to throw at track meets.

I pray about it. I gather advice from almost everyone I’ve even known, searching to hear God’s voice through friends, roommates, and field hockey teammates. Wondering if this is it. Wondering why the decision to leave a sport that I’ve been a part of for so long feels like the hardest decision I’ve had to make.

My pros and cons list is interrupted by the shout of a teammate: Megan, it’s your turn. My fingers are numbed by the thick chill of a Saturday morning in February. My sleeve is yanked down over my fist as I breathe hard little huff huffs on my immovable, bent fingers. Prying them open, I roll back my stiff shoulders and position my feet the way I would set up my fifth grader feet—always the same. Whirling through the motions with little focus on everyone watching me through the clanging iron cage, I release it. Index finger still tingling, I squint. Standing motionless in the circle with my arms limply dangling, I watch as my discus cleanly soars up and arcs down before the clouds hit the tree line.

            Practice ends and I approach my coach with the speech I’ve practiced in my head all morning. I ask to talk to him, my hands shaking in my pockets.  I want to tell him that I think I need to focus on school. I want to say that I’ve made up my mind.

            “You’re not going to continue with the outdoor season, am I right?” Stunned, I look at him but he’s not looking at me, he’s still shoveling snow from the sidewalk next to the track. He tosses the snow away.

            “Oh… well, I wanted to say… no. I mean, you’re right. I’m not going to continue,” I stutter and anxiously look around to see if any of my teammates are listening.

            “To be honest, it doesn’t matter to me if you are on the team or not. You’re talented, but it doesn’t really matter to me.” He continues to shovel the snow away and my jaw drops. Pretending that I wasn’t offended, I quickly nod and choke out an okay, great.

            “Feel free to give us your throwing gloves or throwing shoes, we might have other people who are looking for new shoes on the team.” Once again, I squeak out an okay and continue to stare at him, shoveling. There’s nothing else to say to fill the silence and feeling dismissed, I gather my things, walking across the track and crossing my field hockey field to leave. I choke on the cries that I’ve been holding in for the past month, cries that ruin my perfectly calculated decision to abandon my identity as a thrower – and as a senior in college, leave behind my identity as a college athlete in general. Now I am just… a student. A retired student athlete. I don’t even know what students even do in the afternoons or during Saturdays from dawn to dusk. Do they study? Do they talk about how much free time they have, chuckling as student athletes pass them on the sidewalk. Students that carry both a backpack and a gym bag, decked out in sweatpants but still wearing a nice top.

            I reach the parking lot, feeling the sting of nostalgia for the middle schooler who I had once been when I followed my dad around at track meets, deciding that I could do without teammates, especially when I had a dad to hang out with.

I sit in the car, unsure of where to go from here. I think of my last meet (although I didn’t know it was my last), a few weekends ago: I exited the throwing ring, disappointed with my throw, and shuffled over to my dad. He smiles, squeezing my shoulders. I tell him that I forgot to switch my feet, and also to spin quickly when I started my second turn. He hugs me tight and says, good effort; we’ll get ‘em next time. I put the key in the ignition and continue to cry, frustrated at my decision to abandon my throwing shoes in exchange for time better spent on work, on leisure, and on friends. A decision that was supposed to be easier because I prayed about it.