Something to remember him by...

I know that every time I set foot on the basketball court, I'm risking getting hurt. This is even more of a concern because I play in a co-ed basketball league; meaning I play with guys who are not only much taller and stronger than me, but also much more aggressive.


But it's a risk that I'm willing to take because I love the game.


And it's still a risk that I'm willing to take, even after tonight.


Tonight was a frustrating set of games. We work quite effectively as a team, just lack height overall. So when we're up against a team with a guy taller than our tallest guy - 5'10" or so - we tend to struggle under the basket. Tonight was an exception in that we struggled every single time the other team's best male player drove to the hoop.


So during a timeout, I had the brilliant idea to suggest that I suck it up and take the charge. Now mind you, I am well aware of what a charge is. And I was fully prepared to plant my feet a foot away from the basket, put my hands up, and wait for a guy more than six feet tall to barrel full-speed into me.

In theory, the plan worked perfectly. On the very next play, the guy dribbled past my teammate, drove to the hoop, and went in for what had been the easy lay-up all night. What was different is that to do so, he had to knock me down. Thank God the ref called the charge, because I was not about to have done that and then not gotten the call.


The problem came, obviously, after the hit. Not only did my entire body weight land on my right elbow, but my teammate had come rushing after our opponent, jumped with him, and both of them fell with me. Along the way, the fall on my elbow was reinforced by the guy stepping on it while I went down. As if I needed to add insult to injury.



It hurt. A lot. I kept telling my teammates that I thought I had "two elbows" because of the huge lump that immediately formed next to my elbow from all the swelling.



Crap, I'm going on vacation tomorrow. I can't be injured for that, I thought.



But everyone's focus was on my bicep because it had immediately swollen in a footprint pattern. Yeah, that's a footprint. On my arm.



And even though I was the only girl available to play on our team, I wasn't about to force a forfeit and allow the other team to win. Especially after all this. So I spent the last four minutes of the game playing as best as I could while gripping my right elbow with my left hand. But we won. Score!



Afterward, I grabbed an ice pack from the ref and nursed my sore elbow while the guys on my team scrutinized my new bicep tattoo.



"Hey! This kinda looks like Rob's shoe," my teammate, Albert, said.



"What are you talking about?" I asked.



"Look," he said, holding my teammate's shoe up to my arm. The pattern on the bottom of Rob's shoe matched perfectly.

"YOU stepped on me?" I accusingly asked my teammate, who later said my arm had injured his ankle. Nice.



But the guys carried my bags for me as they walked me home, and gave me strict instructions on how to care for my swollen arm. Love my teammates. And I was no worse for the wear for vacation. I was just left with a weird tennis shoe tattoo on my bicep. Totally badass.