Home > Get Out! > Archives > 2008 > March > 20 > Entry
Alix is an Outlaw
Some of you may remember I tried out for the Austin Outlaws on Jan. 12, recently featured in an Austin-American Statesman article as well as this blog.
Unlike the article’s author, I completed tryouts and began attending practice as a team member. In fact, I write this while icing my quad post-practice, which began twinging during the conditioning drills that comprise a large segment of the first few practices. In one version of the “suicide,” we sprint 10 yards and either touch the turf or drop down completely, sprint back, touch, sprint to the 20-yard line, touch, sprint back, sprint to the 30-yard line, touch, sprint back.
Between days, I switch between the fast group, which challenges me but in which I am always the slowest runner, and the next-fastest group, where it is a little easier to keep up. After conditioning, the team is broken up into groups: receivers and quarterbacks, offensive line, defensive line, and defensive backs. It a relief to pick up my water bottle and run across the field towards my coach and the other DBs.
Coach Bobby always has something to tell us before we get started, and I listen attentively, trying, usually unsuccessfully, to memorize the information. What can I say? It’s a lot all at once, and the real challenge is converting brain understanding to physical understanding. It often takes me several tries at a skill before I feel like I’ve even begun to incorporate it into memory.
The DBs are the smallest group, a fact that means I am working with the same people over and over again. This is ideal for me, as I tend to clam up when I feel awkward, and getting to know a small group is much easier.
My friends are, in a word, fascinated. Everyone wants to see me in the uniform, even though I try to tell them that wearing it, I may as well be anyone else. As the Outlaws are a player-supported team, I’m thinking of charging for appearances.
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