TIMEOUT: The little things that count

Anyone who has ever participated in sports has experienced the "agony of defeat." It could simply have been being on a team that lost the game because of a dumb-luck mistake in the outfield or the end zone, or it could have resulted from merely misjudging a cross-wind on the 11th fairway and slicing a ball so deep in the woods that it'd take an elite reconnaissance company to find it.

We've all hesitated at the moment of truth; we've swung and missed, shot and air-balled or flat-out fell on our faces. And we've paid for it with embarrassment, insults and enough generalized consternation to make us belabor whether or not we ever should have agreed to try the stupid game in the first place.

It's bad enough when we mess something up as individuals — when we let a grounder sneak past us, slip and fall on wet pavement during a race, or miss the board entirely when we're throwing some darts. But when they happen when we're part of a team, such gaffes have far more wide-reaching effects. Long-standing friendships have wobbled because of a dropped pass or pop-fly, especially when things like tournament advancement and trophies were involved. Recounts of the offending play can even surface during dinner-party introductions years after the fact.

"Oh, yeah — you're the guy who missed that grounder three years ago and destroyed forever all the hope and happiness your team had ever known."

Granted a team athlete has a lot to suffer following a blown play, but I found out this week that those little "accidents" that happen to us when we're by ourselves often leave just as lasting memories that, if not faced and dealt with, can prevent us from ever trying the sport again.

How I got to this subject was the result of a quick ride through my neighborhood on my skateboard a couple of evenings ago. Specifically, I fell victim to a phenomenon most feared and loathed by anyone who has ever ridden one — truck stutter, a kind of wheel-wobble that develops at high, no-turning-back speeds that makes one's legs feel (and look) like a pair of writhing serpents and increases in severity the more one tries to stop it (if you can keep trying in the midst of the white panic it brings). The fear and potential emotional scarring this condition brings is virtually immeasurable, as there is no escape save bailing off the board and hoping you'll survive the impact with the pavement once you're through smacking the soles of your shoes on the pavement in a stork-like run as your feet try to catch up to your upper body. I mean graveyards, tombstones, castles, wandering skeletons in fishermen's outfits and Grateful Dead music have nothing on truck stutter in terms of sheer terror. In fact, you'd cheerfully relinquish every worldly possession you have to stop truck stutter.

In a similar context, surfers have a kindred condition that is not as physically painful but is still as panic provoking. Fortunately, this one only lasts a moment before you have to begin your fight for survival (at least there's not as much time to think about your demise) — pearling the board.

"Pearling" is the overly benign term used to describe a guaranteed wipeout when the nose of the surfboard digs into the water and stops and then the wave itself kind of squeegees the rider off the deck and into the foam face-first. Even worse, there is some kind of physical law at play here that makes it a given that you will meet the sandy bottom cheek-first, right before your ankles slam into your ears. Somewhat like being inside a washing machine on spin cycle, the only thing a surfer can do is hope there is enough air left in his lungs to carry his body to the surface, as there is no way to know even which way is up after a pearl-face-plant combo.

So there are definitely some little things out there in the recreation world that can have some seriously outlook-altering effects. Handlebar wobble, snow-ski chatter, a runaway saucer on a hill that didn't look that icy — there are plenty of little accidents that can occur no matter how well prepared and safety-minded we are.

Perhaps the most important lesson I've learned resulted from an incident that happened the first (and last) time I tried waterskiing. All I can suggest here (and it is from experience) is that if you fall off the skis, let go of the tow handle. If you do not, it will take you right to the bottom (also cheek-first), and that elite reconnaissance company will now be searching for your trunks.