She Had It Comin'

Just a reminder if you are just tuning in...it's 30 stories from my life until I turn the big 3-0.

Today's Story:

My freshmen year in college our team played Temple University in Philadelphia for the first round of the NCAA tournament. For the entire week before the game our coach told us about how aggressive and dirty Temple players typically were, and made us promise we would not follow their example and retaliate.

At half time none of us discussed how we were going to pull out of a11-3 deficit, but only complained about being cussed out, pushed, knocked over and virtually beaten by the Temple players. Again, my coach implored us not to retaliate, and if we did, she declared we were finished for the game.

At the beginning of the second half I was guarding my player after a saved shot. Out of frustration I sort of gave her a small push as we were running down the field. In retaliation she lowered her shoulder and lifted me up and threw me to the ground. I remember looking towards the sideline and seeing the Temple fans laughing, while my dad screamed, “Get Up!” I then found my player and saw her running across the field wide open. Without thinking I got up and ran full speed towards her. She turned around and saw me coming for her so she stopped running away and starting running towards me. It then became a game of chicken. When I reached her I held out my arm and completely clothes lined the chick. As soon as she hit the ground the ref came running over and handed us both yellow cards. At that moment I knew I was out of the game. I ran to the bench and threw my stick into the bin. As I walked by my coach, expecting a good tongue lashing, she muttered, “Nice hit. You are going back in in two minutes.” When I got back into the game we went on a 7-0 run. We ended up losing the game, but I will never forget that hit. I have never hit anyone since, well, not as purposefully, and to this day I don’t know where that came from.