Pickleball is my passion. As a lifelong mid-tier tennis player from South Florida, I’ve finally found my true calling. Grandparents? They adore me. Parents? They want you to bring me home. Every single one of your guy friends? They NEED me.
Brown has had the honor of my participation in their prestigious intramural pickleball league. My greatest strength, you ask? A complete lack of social anxiety and a perfectly healthy obsession with winning a dry-fit t-shirt.
Sophomore year was my first taste of greatness. My partner and I made it to the playoffs undefeated, and naturally, it wasn’t looking like things would change anytime soon. That is, until I had to forfeit in the semi-finals after he decided that “surprising his girlfriend for her 20th birthday” was somehow more important than everlasting glory. Curse you, Charlie and the super loving and supportive relationship that you have! Just say you’re lame. Before that, though, you did make an opponent cry, which I have to respect – so, you know, a solid season overall.
This year, I was on to something bigger and better: a new partner. We were on a mission, not just playing for victory but for feminism. Our goal? That beautiful, beautiful intramural champions dry-fit t-shirt. And for a while, it seemed within reach. Three weeks into the competition, we were undefeated. I had been telling literally everyone–willing and unwilling–to bask in our overwhelming success.
Then, disaster struck. The tournament schedule was released, and our team name was nowhere to be found. (That team name being just my partner’s name because she “didn’t know how it worked.”) We had been erased. Eliminated. Robbed. And, as I soon realized, so had every other all-female team in the top 10.
Furious, I did the only thing I could do. I wrote an email. A long. Nasty. Strongly worded email. They know what they did. My story must be heard. With no response to the email, I had to resort to the big guns–the Rib of Brown.
Maybe it was all for the best–women are bad at sports after all.