It appears our short-lived dodgeball careers are over at the Beacon. A press release today from Kalispell Parks and Recreation, the official sanctioning body of the budding city dodgeball league, reminded me of our staff’s unspoken agreement to not sign up for dodgeball this year. Apparently, the brutality of last season was enough for this proud group. Though we managed to win a few games, it was clear that the stars were never properly aligned for the Beacon Blitz to be a contender in Kalispell city dodgeball.
But as low as morale sunk during last winter’s season, I think we can all take solace in making excuses: We lost a few good men to injury while scheduling conflicts, such as pesky family interferences, disrupted our rhythm. Our team chemistry never got a chance to blossom. Now it’s come to this: the end of the Blitz. Like so many other sports franchises limited by injuries and other unforeseeable circumstances, the Blitz, it appears, will never reach its potential. At least not this year. Perhaps fellow reporter Dan Testa predicted this in his own blog earlier this year.
One chilly night per week last winter, an ever-changing group of Beaconites would stride onto the quiet dodgeball courts of Kalispell Middle School. Some would stretch; others would just throw balls at people’s heads. All finely tuned athletes have their own pre-game routines. The point is that we were focused.
We were a fashionable bunch, led by Testa, who sported a fine-looking headband to jive nicely with his beard, which was carefully groomed for intimidation purposes. He also wore wristbands for indeterminable purposes. And, of course, we were the only team that went to the trouble of making T-shirts plastered with our team names. The style, the focus, it was all there. Unfortunately, the refined skills were not. Then over time, the willpower died out as well.
If you want to be mean, you could surely point out the fact that we just weren’t good. You can say our collective reflexes were insufficient and our cardiovascular capacity limited us to wheezing after the fourth game. You could say we didn’t like repeatedly getting hit in the heads with balls. But what’s the fun in that?
Throw us a bone. Let us believe that the rotary cuff and knee injuries (which actually happened) were the real culprits for our losing record. Let us believe that maybe it was our beloved families’ faults, as they demanded our attention at times when we should have been fighting for first place out on the dodgeball courts. Let us believe this. We’re not playing anymore, so these ever-growing fibs are really all we have.