2. The Tryout

 The Tryout 

3 Weeks Later

Jason stuffed a jersey into the blue duffel bag that was about to see the outdoors for the first time in 3 weeks. Jason was confident that he had made peace with the defeat at the provincial tournament. He was ready to move on, it was time to play again, it was time to get better and prove himself. Although he couldn’t explain it, somewhere within him, Jason knew this wasn’t about proving himself to others. Just as Jason finished zipping the bag, his phone buzzed. A message from a contact labeled only as “Stav” briefly stated “here.” 

Jason immediately pocketed his phone and shouted into his house “I’m off to tryouts, I’ll be back by 3 or i’ll call!” 

“Have fun J!” his mother returned the call from inside the house. 

“Good luck, you’re gonna kill it!” Jason’s father added. 

Jason replied with a quick “Thank you” before exiting the house. A sleek Mazda sedan was waiting at the curb. Inside were 3 other people. Jason greeted Stav, an unassuming and average white boy with buzzed hair, a short South Asian girl who Jason greeted as Hannah, and Winston, an impossibly tall looking Black guy with dreads past his shoulder. The four exchanged pleasantries as Jason buckled himself in and the car rolled away from the house. 

The Sedan wound its way through the city. The car was alight with energy, playful jabs and jokes flew around, but none of them could fully mask the nervousness that sat below the surface. 

The car arrived at an expansive field. Several discs were already flying around, and a line was forming at a tent. Dozens of players began streaming in, gradients of dark and light jerseys contrasted with the emerald green of the field and azure of the sky. The four teens stepped out of the car, continuing some meaningless conversation. 

As they stood next to each other, Winston’s impressive height stood out even more. Jason was a solid 6ft tall and with his dark spiked hair appeared closer to 6 foot 2. Winston could look clear over Jason’s hair, standing around 6ft 6. Compared to the height of Winston and Jason, Stav’s 5ft 7 frame looked downright shrimpy. But even Stav towered over the 5ft1 Hannah. 

Slowly, the four worked their way through the queue, checked in at the tent, and staked out a stretch of grass to get their cleats on and begin warming up. Moments later, the four had split into pairs, Winston and Jason as one pair, Hannah and Stav as the other. As the pairs began throwing, each took note of the weather. It was a beautiful day, 22C/72F , with a very slight breeze, and partly sunny. It was peak conditions for ultimate, a type of weather that came only a handful of times in a given year. A slight sense of calm ebbed and flowed within Jason. He knew that he should focus on himself. But he also acknowledged the competition he was up against. Stav was steady and experienced, bolstered by superb athleticism. Winston was about as versatile as a player could get, intelligent, and an incredible thrower. Next  to them, Jason couldn’t help but feel somewhat inferior. He knew he was one of the better defensive players for his age, and could hold his own on offense, but he wasn’t better than Stav and Winston at anything in particular. 

Stav, as always, was radiating warmth. Most of the time he stayed happy and positive. Even when he could not muster happiness, such as times like this when he was nervous, he still projected confidence and a sense of stability. Winston seemed similarly nervous to Jason, and with his gangly frame, he could hardly hide his nervousness. Despite his size he was not particularly awkward, however, when he was nervous his coordination slipped. And when Winston’s coordination slipped, it appeared as though his body was all out of sorts. Watching Hannah warm up, Jason could feel a bit more calm return. Hannah had played on the women’s youth club team the year before, and Jason could still pick up a few of her nervous ticks. If someone who was basically a lock to make the team was nervous, it was only natural Jason would be too. 

However, before he could get too caught up in his thoughts, a coach blasted a sharp note on a whistle and called for the players to gather round. A crowd of well over a hundred teenage ultimate players slowly formed into a rough oval. The oblong mass of people focused intently on the handful of adults in the center of the group. The four coaches in charge of tryouts introduced themselves, referencing their names, pronouns,  and coaching experience. Jason took mental notes of each coach as they laid out the plan for tryouts. 

And with that, tryouts were finally underway. The warm up began with a jog around the field complex. Stav, Jason, Winston, and Hannah were all comfortably in the front third of the pack. Even just running felt weird to Jason, there was a weird pressure that hovered around him. It was as though everything he did could cost him a spot on the team. The jog wrapped up and all the players lined up lengthwise along the sideline of two soccer fields. Two coaches had placed cones to note how far everyone should go during the dynamic part of the warm up. The remaining two coaches worked everyone through a series of stretches and strengthening exercises that involved the players moving from the sideline to the cone and back.

The stretching felt good to Jason helping him get into a groove. Further down the line Winston felt a similar calm settle over him. This was nothing new, it was just more frisbee, and Winston loved frisbee. Stav was long past the stage of being worried, the stretches didn’t even do much, he was loose and ready. Stav was playing with nothing to lose. Hannah was somewhere between Winston and Stav in calmness. She’d done this process before and come out the other side unscathed, victorious even. Hannah was glad that there was nervousness, it showed that she had not become so cocky that she thought her spot on the team was predetermined. 

The warm up wrapped up and those trying out then split into men and women-matching groups. As the groups split apart, Hannah and Jason passed by each other. The two high-fived and locked eyes, as they did, Hannah nodded quickly before jogging away. The slight nod was enough to light a fire in Jason as he went with the rest of the male-matching players to start drills. 

As the drills went on, Jason was near the top of his game. His throws were accurate and his cuts were clean. He was stopping on a dime and starting quickly, Jason felt fast today. In the second to last drill, Jason found himself in a cutting line. After getting the signal to cut, he drove deep watching the thrower and waiting either for the disc to be thrown, or for a signal to cut back under. Jason saw the throw go up and immediately began tracking it through the air. The throw was a beauty, long and floaty, giving Jason plenty of time to run under it and catch it in stride. As Jason’s path met the disc’s, his hands reached out to gather it, and he missed. The disc passed through his hands, grazing his fingers before landing with the same sickening thud as his drop three weeks prior. 

For the better part of three weeks Jason had been able to ignore or distract himself from the drop and the loss at the provincial tournament. In that moment, it all came back. In that moment, all the momentum he had gained throughout the tryout evaporated. In that moment, Jason felt broken again. 

↼⇀ ↼⇀ ↼⇀

The ride home was quieter than the ride to the tryouts. Stav and Winston had witnessed firsthand the collapse that Jason underwent. Hannah did not take long to catch on that things hadn’t gone well for Jason. Conversation was limited, and when present focused on topics far away from ultimate. Jason was the first to be dropped off. As he exited the car, the other three offered affirmations that held no meaning to Jason. 

“You did great today.”

“You fought hard.”

“Fantastic effort today bro.” It didn’t matter to Jason who said what. Each grated against his nerves because he knew they weren’t true. Still, Jason had the sense to return the sentiment to his friends.

“Y’all did great today too” Jason said as he pulled his bag from the back seat. Jason closed the door to the car and trudged up the driveway to his front door. 

At least I only messed this up for myself this time was one of the many strands of thoughts that clouded Jason as he dealt with his gear and prepped for his shower. Thoughts that questioned his worth as a person, thoughts that made him believe that his friends and teammates didn’t like him anymore or didn’t like him in the first place all hounded Jason as he was dragged into darkness and despair. To most observers this would seem trivial, a dropped pass, a bad tryout, nothing worth an intense breakdown. To be honest, Jason himself didn’t know why his thoughts were this intense, why he had become so distraught. 

As he showered and the thoughts rained down like the water from the shower head, Jason couldn’t even bring himself to cry. Crying would be too clean and would serve as a piece of closure that he did not believe he deserved. Crying would be allowing weakness and allowing a reset, which to some fraction of his mind, Jason could not afford. 

Once he was done showering and getting dressed, Jason walked downstairs and into the kitchen. Within the kitchen, his parents were sitting at the far end of the table, their chairs rotated to face the entrance of the kitchen. Instantly, Jason knew they were waiting for him, this was an ambush of sorts. Jason tried to round the corner to get to the fridge before they could start talking, but as he reached for the door, his father spoke. 

“Jason we need to talk.” Jason stared dully into the door of the refrigerator as the words washed over him. Every poor decision or minor act of rule-breaking from the past 16 years of Jason’s life rushed through his mind. His father’s neutral tone struck a cold dagger into Jason’s heart. Jason swallowed, feeling the lump in his throat as he did. He turned to face his parents.

“Yeah, sure, what’s up.” Jason tried to muster a nonchalant tone as to not betray some heinous crime that he didn’t remember committing. 

“I have recently accepted a job offer from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.” His mother spoke up in a gentle but disheartened tone. Seeing the confusion wash over Jason’s face, she continued “It’s a really good job, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us as a family and we’re so sorry that we have to do this.” 

“This means we’re gonna be moving right?” Jason said without even thinking to form the sentence. Both his parents nodded.

“We’ve put an offer on a house in a great neighborhood, and if everything goes right we’ll be moving in at the start of August.” Jason’s father explained. 

“Huh, well okay” Jason had mentally prepared himself to be grounded or scolded or yelled at for committing some delinquent act. He was not prepared for his life to be flipped upside down like this. 

“Let us know if you have any questions about anything, we’re always here to talk if you need us.” Jason’s mom added. Jason nodded as he heard her words. The sentiment was nice, but he was unsure if it was really true. Jason turned back around, pulled some food from the fridge, hastily assembled a meal, tossed it in the microwave and wordlessly waited for it to heat up. Once his food was ready he pulled it out, grabbed some utensils, and slowly hiked upstairs to eat. The aching in his legs did not bother him nearly as much as the whirlwind of thoughts in his mind.

In his room, Jason sat at his desk and downed the food on his plate in a flash. He could hear echoes of his parent’s voices drifting up from the floor below. Not wanting to hear snippets of their conversation, Jason moved for the tangled mess of his earbuds that sat on his bedside table. After a first attempt of trying to untangle them failed, Jason’s swelling frustration got to him, and he tossed them across the room. Not wanting to be confronted with the silence of his own thoughts, Jason turned his phone on and navigated to the music app. As he did he realized he had received an email. The email was from 5 minutes ago from the coaches of Eclipse. Jason knew what the email was going to say, and opened it to confirm his premonition. Despite his confidence in what it was going to say, reading that he would not be making the team still stung. 

Jason moved again to get music playing. He didn’t care what was playing, he just wanted some noise other than his parent’s voices and his own thoughts. In the last moments before the phone’s noise filled the room, a clear voice echoed from beyond Jason's room. “He’s just gonna have to work through this stuff himself.”

Fin Chapter 2