Track & Tennis team

While attending Sahuarita High School in Arizona I ran track.  I ran the 440, 880 and cross country.  While I was not a star athlete I loved running.  We practiced our cross country by running out in the desert sands.  Trust me when I say that running in sand builds muscle and stamina really fast.  I even took a crack at the javelin and shot put.  The javelin was really fun but the shot put was a hoot.  I didn’t weigh but 86 pounds and here I was with this heavy ball trying to make a circle under control and launch it (still with control) within a designated area with some sort of length to it.  Although I practiced and practiced I never did get any length to my shot put.  I did manage to get to state with my running skills.  After high school I ran several miles every week for many years.   I love nature and my runs gave me the opportunity to enjoy all that God has created. 

I also played Tennis for Sahuarita High school.  Once at a tennis meet I got a pretty serious injury.  Our tennis courts backed up to the baseball fields.  We were having a tennis meet but I don’t recall if our baseball team were having a game or a practice all I know is their home plate was just behind the tennis fence lines.  Of course there were the usual high fence protection behind home plate and the bleachers for the fans as well, so there was a fairly good distance between the courts and the fields.  I was in the middle of a match and the tennis ball had just crossed the net onto my side of the court when I barely recall hearing the thwack of a bat.  Just as I moved my racquet to return the tennis ball a hard ball came from high behind my head, hit about five feet in front of me hard and bounced back into my face; more specifically, into my eye.  The baseball was a very hard hit foul ball, its momentum had carried it over both fences and its backspin had caused it to bounce back into my eye.  I dropped like a hot potato.  It felt like someone had poked my eye with a hot poker.  I couldn’t open my eye and it was pouring tears.  Coach ran over to take a look at my eye, he tried to open it but couldn’t so he called the female coach over to take me into the locker room.  She and I headed inside my tennis matches were over for the day.  I sat on the bench in the locker room with ice on my eye.  The coach came back and tried to look again  she was able to force my lid open to check my eye and she quickly sucked in her breath, when I asked what was wrong she said, “oh, nothing”.  Ok, I was a senior in high school did she really think I was that stupid?  The coach called my mother to come and get me, though I did not know it she told my mother that she would need to take me directly to an eye doctor.  I lived 35 miles from the school I attended so it took my mom a little while to pick me up.  I got to a mirror when the coach wasn’t looking and pealed my lid open took see what she saw that was so shocking and I was shocked to see that I had no pupil in my eye.  It was so weird.  Of course my eye was horrifically red and swollen but I had no pupil nor could I see out of the eye at all. 

Once my mother picked me up from school we headed on to Tucson to an eye specialist and discovered that the reason I did not see my pupil was because it was in shock.  Who knew a pupil could go into shock?  The ball had hit my eye so hard that it damaged my retina.  I had a bruise print of the baseball threads in my eyebrow for weeks and it took about two weeks for my pupil to relax enough to be seen.  I looked very strange without that pupil.  It was a lovely couple of weeks.  I have to say that I was a little paranoid when I had any tennis match if anything was going on at the baseball fields after that.