Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 232

You guys,

I was in my 20s and Facebook seemed a great place to vent. 

The high school field hockey team I coached on the Upper East Side of Manhattan knew diddly-squat about the sport and it offended me. Even worse, they were not committed athletes, the way I had always been. I resented them.

So each time I was flabbergasted by something that happened on the field I posted it later on Facebook. I called it my “Fun Field Hockey Moment of the Day” (FFHMD) and wrote things like:

-After the game I informed my girls that we’ll be doing an MVP for each game and then announced to the team who it was that day. She responded, “What’s that?”

-Player asked which side of the stick to jab with, and flipped her stick over wondering if she should jab the ball with the top of her stick.

-Why is it that when I ask a player why she was late for practice, or why she missed practice, or why she did something else wrong, the first two words out of her mouth are usually, “My mom…” ?

We were on the bus to one of our last games of the season. I can’t remember our exact record but I know it started with a zero. We barely had enough players to field a team—there were fourteen of them on a good day. 

I sat at the front of the bus and Rebecca sat directly behind me. She was a sophomore and I never knew why she sat so close but she always did. I was facing forward when she said, “Can’t believe I’m on Twitter. Only because of you, Nick. Going for a run in Central Park.” 

I spun around in my seat. What was she reading?

“It’s on your Twitter account,” Rebecca said. Oh, God. She was searching my name online. I hadn’t been on Twitter in a year, I barely remembered writing that. 

“You also have a write-up at your college, and you have an IMDB account.” 

Okay… stalker. 

Rebecca glanced at me and then back down at her phone. “And you know your Facebook account isn’t private either. I’ve seen all your ‘Fun Field Hockey Moments’, making fun of us.”

I had two thoughts then. First, that Rebecca was wrong. My Facebook account was set to private. Second, Oh dear Lord what have I done and how do I get out of this? 

“You’ve been reading my Facebook all season?” I asked.

“Yup,” Rebecca said.

I scanned the players’ faces on the bus behind her. “Everyone?” 

“No, but there’s a group of us who read all of them.”

I spun back around in my seat and opened Facebook. When faced with a high-stress situation most people do one of three things: fight, flight, or freeze. I always freeze. I stared at my Facebook page, useless. How do I change my settings to private?! I thought it was already set to private!

Behind me I heard whispers spreading throughout the bus. If there were some girls who hadn’t read them yet, they were reading them now. 

I stood up.

“Okay, girls,” I announced, looking down at all of their faces as they gave me their full attention. “Yes, I’ve written things on Facebook.” I imagined the complaints from parents, imagined being called into the athletic director’s office and getting fired for my inappropriate posts. “If I hurt your feelings, I’m sorry.” 

One of the players stood up. “I was the one who asked you about jabbing the ball with the wrong side of the stick,” she said, then smiled. “It got a lot of comments and likes.”

Another player yelled out, “Bleeck, did you write anything about me?” 

“Umm,” I said, only if you did something stupid. “Did you want me to have written about you?” 

“Yes!” 

Everyone started talking at once. The girls who hadn’t read the posts wanted to know what else I wrote about and who. To clear the air, I went through my page and read them aloud, like a comedian testing out jokes to a warmed-up audience.

I prefaced the last one, directed at Helen, a freshman. “It’s not your fault about your mom,” I said. When I was in high school I never mentioned my parents if I had to miss practice for any reason. I didn’t understand why these girls always acted as if their mom was the reason for absences, but I was starting to believe that the parents at this elite, private school were, actually, in complete control of their daughters’ schedules. This would surely be my last day coaching this team once word got back to Helen’s mom. 

“Oh, I don’t care,” Helen said, her usually shy demeanor gone. Her freshman teammate sat next to her and chimed in, “Yea, our mom’s ARE crazy.” Everyone nodded and agreed. 

We got off the bus and started warming up for the game. A player ran up to me when she finished her turn in a drill. “Bleeck,” she said, with a big smile on her face, “I feel like we really bonded today.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Now go kick some butt.”

We went on to win our first game of the season, 2-1. It was against a middle school team.

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Until next week,

Charlie