Picture this, a five foot tall, 120
pound girl in grade ten playing basketball against a 6 foot, 180 pound girl in
grade twelve. What’s wrong with this picture some of you may ask? Well let me
tell you from someone who speaks from experience, it sucks! I was on the short
and light end of sports all my life. I got thrown around very easily, and got
laid out every game. This is very dangerous even if it seems like it is just a
part of the game.
I played a post position, this is
the position that is usually played by taller and heavier players. I was always
the one who got the blunt force of every ones pushes and elbows, which there
were a lot of. The posts play under the net, this is the most aggressive place
on the entire court because its where you really need to get the ball, either
to get it out of your zone, or try to score again.
For any of you who don’t know this
already, girls are vicious players. You would probably be surprised if you
heard all the times I left the court bleeding from being scratched or saw all
the bruises I would have from all the thrown elbows and hips. I was constantly
on the floor every game. The girls would seem to gain up on me because I was
the smallest player on the court, in other words I was the easiest target. There
was a specific case where I got thrown into a wall, quite literally. I was
jumping up to get a rebound and a larger girl came up beside me, hip checked me
out of the air, and I went flying head first into a wall. This concussed me
instantly. This is just one of many examples of where weight was not on my side
but this particular instance was one that really got me thinking. What would
sports be like without weight difference? What if we divided all sports like
wrestling, with weight classes? Some would say this would make sports more
equal. Whereas others would say it takes the competition out of sports. What is
my take on it you are probably wondering, and if I answer that I feel as though
I would sway your decision so I am just going to leave the conversation and
decision up to you guys. Should weight be considered in sports or not?
I don't think I know enough about to sports to weigh in on this (see what I did there? hehe)
ReplyDeleteWhat I do know is I totally agree with you that girls can be vicious players.
I played on a Roller Derby team for a while and never have I seen so much harm done in a game! For Derby, the smallest girl on the team is chosen to be the Jammer because she needs to be the fastest and able to get through small spaces in between other players, and the rest of the team (and usually the larger girls) are the Blockers because it's their job to protect the Jammer and to 'bump' other players out of the way. Blockers can be brutal and I've seen almost every bone broken during one game or another. I fractured my coccyx twice in the short while I played and that was horrible.
I guess I agree that always playing within weight classes would take some of the competitiveness away but it would probably be safer too.
Christine