To read part I of Unhappy Campers, posted last week, click here.
And then, at around four in the afternoon, Janis announced the next assignment: we had fifty dollars to spend on dinner and the following day’s breakfast and lunch. Fifty dollars for the group. So, about 1.28 per person per meal. Which somewhat contrasted with our usual habits. While on the road, fifty dollars could be spent on one person in a day.
“Fifty dollars? Is this some kind of joke?” someone snarled from the back of the bus.
“Seriously, that’s insane.” someone else added.
After suggesting we start planning for our meals, Janis drove us to the local supermarket. While raft building hadn’t elicited much of a conversation, and while the dollar constraint remained unpopular, food was a more popular topic. Donuts and pop tarts (“the raspberry ones with all the icing”) were finally elected as the optimal breakfast selection. Because, you know, that’s what high-level college athletes should eat. Ham and cheese sandwiches would work for lunch. And some pasta for dinner.
Janis gathered us in the middle of A&P’s parking lot. She held something behind her back, struggling to contain her excitement. With a grin, she revealed a pile of paisley patterned bandanas, and informed us that a “Surprise!” was in store.
Half the team would be blindfolded, and allowed to grab food items from the store shelves. They were the ears and hands (E&H) of the operation. The other, non-blindfolded half would only be allowed to speak. They were the eyes and voices (E&Vs). We had 30 minutes to complete all purchases. So six tall girls meandered through A&P’s food aisles, completely blindfolded, looking for doughnuts, ham, cheese, and pasta. The other half, including me, impatiently barked imprecise orders, such as “in the middle”, or “right there”. Here’s a an extract of what happened (names have been changed, slightly.)
Helena (E&V), guides Shantie through the vast aisle of tomato products: “Okay, so, go up, up, up. No down. Ehh to the ri – Careful! Clank. Whoa. Okay, slowwwly. Maybe two inches. Yep that’s it. Prego sauce.”
Shantie shakes her head vigorously, but can’t speak.
Helena: “What?”
Shantie hesitantly moves her hands in midair, thinking hard about her next gestures. Finally, she pretends to vomit on the floor while grabbing her stomach.
Helena: “What’s wrong? You’re sick?”
Shantie shakes head, points at the shelves, and repeats the vomiting motion.
Another player, Juliet, sees this happening from afar, and approaches. She momentarily forgets about Becky, her E&H partner. Realizing her mistake, she turns around and screams at Becky to “just follow my voice”. Becky, a tall post player, whose long arms are extended directly in front of her, tackles a stack of Kraft Dinner boxes in the process.
Juliet (visibly annoyed with Becky’s inability to follow orders, addresses Helena): “What’s going on?”
Helena: “I don’t know. I don’t think Shantie likes that stuff.”
Julia: “Aww come on Shantie. It’s not that bad.” Julia looks at Helena, and exhales air profusely while rolling her eyes, wondering how Prego sauce could possibly be that catastrophic. Decency eventually gets the best of her. “Hey, look, it’s $3.50 anyway. We’ll probably bust our budget. Let’s get something else then.”
Helena: “Oh yeah, didn’t think of that.”
Armeny shows up with her partner, having overheard the conversation from the other side of the isle: “Tomato powder is cheap. Mix it with water and we’re good. How bout we get a jar of the cheapest sauce, and then a couple tomato powder bags. Look, right there.”
Shantie now repeats the non-verbal vomiting action, more desperately this time.
Monica arrives with freshman Britanny, whose body positioning indicates that she’d rather be subjected to waterboarding than to participate in this exercise. All talking parties exchange complaints about the pasta sauce, and finally Monica lightly hits Shantie in the back of the head, telling her to “stop being a damn baby.” Others laugh. It is finally agreed that packets of dehydrated tomatoes will be mixed with water to form pasta sauce.
Forty-one dollars, 7320 words, and thirty-six minor disagreements later, we exited the A&P. We would have spent the nine remaining dollars, but like any candidate on Supermarket Sweep, we ran out of time, and out of patience.
Back at the base, we packed a few tents and sleeping bags into our backpacks, grabbed some pots and pans, water, and departed on a long and treacherous (twelve minute) hike up a few hills. “But why can’t we just sleep here, in the bunk beds?” Once we reached a flatter section of the forest, we assembled our tents — which might as well have been Rubiks cubes — as darkness slowly set over the Pine Barrens.
I could tell you that tomato powder isn’t all that good, especially on pasta whose texture best resembles rice pudding. I could tell you how Janis informed us that all the food would have to be eaten to avoid attracting bears. That everyone flipped after that. That in order to ensure no molecule of food would remain, Britanny even washed the big pasta pot with water and drank all of its content. But the exact details escape me, and they’re not all that important. All in all, the evening was a succession of activities – complaints – failure – more complaints. And I don’t think most of the girls slept much that night, knowing that bears might be roaming around.
The following day, we hopped into the van and devoured our nutritious pop tarts and donuts on our way to the “Wild and Scenic Maurice River”. On the agenda: six miles of river, two per canoe. Which wouldn’t have been so bad had my teammates been competent at steering in a moderately straight line. Janis, who was a strong proponent of non-didactic learning, watched girls paddle in circles with a forward velocity of about 0.01 mph. I’m sure at least a small part of her felt sweet retribution.
As we carved sharp esses along the river, we discovered that some of its sections were too shallow to paddle. We’d have to carry our canoes through bushes along the shore; bushes potentially lined with poison ivy. This information was — as with the rest of Janis’s little factoids – not well received
My partner and I were pretty apt at navigating, likely because I once was an actual canoe instructor. I wasn’t sure whether such knowledge would make me popular or hated, so I didn’t say much, until it became evident that “non-didactic learning” wasn’t doing the trick. I offered a quick crash course to whomever would listen. And now that I think of it, there’s probably a good reason why it’s called a crash course.
As my partner and I approached a group of canoes, I did my best to teach the “j-stroke”, a term that inspired a few smirks. I clarified, “That’s what it’s called, jeez. Just twist your wrist towards you at the end of the stroke. Makes a J in the water.” I was dismissed, as usual, as an insufferable smart-ass.
It took most girls around seven hours to complete the journey. I don’t think anyone experimented with the “j-stroke.” Having given up on our educative mission, we went on our merry way, and spent the better part of the afternoon lying in the sunshine. Eventually, the others showed up, often covered in mud, pine needles, and water. Their expressions ranged from anger to pure hatred for human life. At the end of the day, we returned to the base, mostly silent, while Nicolette, a sophomore, panicked over an apparent rash developing on her calf. I secretly hoped it was from poison ivy.
The weekend ended with Janis leading tam-tam jam session, which was about as melodious as our team chemistry.
I returned to my dorm room later on Sunday night, completely depressed, and pretty angry too. I sat at my desk, shaking my head. Thoughts ran through that same head: Shouldn’t we – thirteen young women passionate about basketball- have gotten along a little bit better? Shouldn’t we have had a good time? Wasn’t sleeping in a tent instead of a Marriott kind of refreshing? Wasn’t a 50$ food budget acceptable, one day of the year, when $600 was the usual norm? Wasn’t building rafts and shopping with blindfolds much better than running miles on the outdoor track?
Apparently not.
There we had been: thirteen teenagers on a camping trip, doing activities involving none of the physical or psychological anguish we were usually subjected to. Kids being kids. No suicide runs. No minute drills, or endless speeches decrying our overall ineptitude. No dreaded “balls away” calls, indicating that practice would now require no basketballs at all. No team chemistry being force-fed down our esophagus through swear word combos and pseudo inhumane physical exercises. The weekend’s only demanding task was developing team spirit at a leisurely pace. So all things being relative, camping should have been fun.
But it wasn’t.
I decided that the problem with the camping weekend was that offered none of the perks scholarship athletes come to appreciate. A camping trip didn’t contribute to class credits. It didn’t provide free textbooks. Free gastronomy. Free clothing. Free Air Miles. Free money. Because a player’s overall happiness was theoretically proportional to the amount of stuff she was given, my new theory went, camping was a ridiculous waste of time.
Let me explain. I figured that the NCAA offered “amateur” sport with none of the usual pitfalls. High-level competition. A competent, passionate staff working full time. Unbelievable resources. No paying for basketball shoes, for ankle braces, for expensive physiotherapy. No fighting with the school volleyball team for more gym time, or with the math teacher for permission to miss a test because of a basketball tournament. No worrying about how to make ends meet. State of the art facilities, academic support, adapted schedules. Everything an athlete needs to succeed, and more.
But incidentally, it seemed that the NCAA offered amateur sport with few of the usual benefits. After a few months of being pushed and bullied in the name of performance, controlled and brainwashed because “that’s how high level sport operates, deal with it”, this becomes more obvious. Amateur sport creates “well rounded” individuals. NCAA sport often creates inward-looking, self-preserving robots. Amateur sport implies self-actualization. NCAA sport often results in self-destruction. If that weren’t the case, 70% of the athletes on an undisclosed Patriot League team a friend of mine played for might not have been on Prozac.
Because of constant emotional and physical whipping, most of us expected, and took comfort in a bunch of things we didn’t need, probably to justify continuing on a path that was in many ways unsustainable. A small price to pay for a degree, some would say. But basketball was no longer an end itself, but only a means to an end. A job.
Tough shit, you say. If you can’t tolerate that, just pay your way through like the rest of us then. While such a statement is true, I feel it might miss the point completely. Because, shouldn’t college basketball really be about those core values it pretends to champion? Couldn’t it achieve more than just being “a job” someone “tolerates”? Wouldn’t it be possible to provide a version of amateur sport without the pitfalls, but with most of the benefits too? An environment where lack of flourishing human relationships isn’t acceptable because you’re getting a free ride anyway; where developing sound work ethic, good character and some healthy team spirit has at least as much value as accessing a state-of-the-art locker room?
When I picture my teammate, standing on a toilet bowl in the middle of the Pine Barrens, searching for cell phone reception, I’m reminded that perhaps the athletes themselves hold a crux of responsibility over such a state of affairs.
Perhaps some of my teammates were a product of their environment. Or maybe they were simply creating such an environment on their own. But I don’t think so. One member of the coaching staff provided an answer to that conundrum on the Monday following the camping trip.
Her words: “Now you see how lucky you are, and I hope you realize it. Now you see that your life over here on campus is great. We give you everything. The best food, the best apparel, the best access to physical therapy, the best of everything. You don’t have to worry about a thing. Life doesn’t get much better than that. Just think about that [the camping trip] next time you feel like complaining.”
What I hoped she would say: “If you couldn’t enjoy this weekend, something is royally wrong with you. We sent you over there for you to have some fun with each other. That’s all you had to do. You got a break from the tough workout schedule; you got to try something new. And look at what you did with that. That’s too bad.”
I wish we had enjoyed our weekend in the Pine Barrens. If I had it to do over again, on my official visit, I might ask my hosts how much fun they’d have if forced to build a raft. Sometimes, that’s a bit more relevant than how much stipend you’re going to pocket for food everyday, or how many pairs of sweatpants you’re going get.
Because they’re not much use if you hate wearing them.
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As with everything else on this site, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece! I never understood “team bonding” activities as they were happening either, it always took a little time for it to sink it–like when we were actually experiencing adversity on the court. What do you know, it appears coaches DO know what they’re doing!