Views From the Back Row
Her twangy Texas accent filled the room with steady discourse on the author, the text, the fact that she would fail you if you plagiarized even “just one little word.”
She smiled as she said these things. She laughed easily. Her threats were like honey hardening . . . sweet to the taste, but enough to choke you if you waited too long to swallow.
Bless your little hearts.
I sat in the back in navy blue Nike warm ups, hair in a pony tail — the usual nonchalant student-athlete vibes.
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After class she gathered all the other athletes — the lanky runners, the sturdy volleyball players, the sleepy-eyed football guys — and told us what she expected of us from the class.
She joked, but she was serious. Every assignment must be turned in early. No excuses. Games, practices, and travel were not valid reasons. Unless you were bleeding or in the hospital, there weren’t any loopholes.
It was terrifying.
“I love athletes, but you’re going to have to work harder than anyone else to pass this class,” she said, tapping her red pen on the podium.
“By the way, I’ll be at your games.”
As the semester rolled along, I sank deeply into the readings, a warm blanket over me that I had shed during adolescence and replaced haphazardly with a soccer ball . . .
Note: This is an excerpt from a piece I’m working on in the WELD Writer’s Club. More to come!
