Childhood sports boil down to this: Find whoever is the most athletic (therefore the coolest) and copy him in every way possible — how he acts, what he wears, etc.

Example: Jim Weiss was the fastest kid in the third grade, even faster than all of the fourth graders. He got a pair of the new Air Jordans. When he wore them to school, he told my best friend Michael not to copy him, since Michael pretty much copied him in everything else. The very next day, Michael showed up to school wearing the same Jordans. He claimed that he had to get new shoes, and they were the only ones that the store had.

You see, for the semi-athletic kid, sports are awful. You’re not good enough to have all the kids want to be like you. And, you’re not bad/fat enough to get sympathy from the parents and be that inspirational kid with an undying spirit who is guaranteed to get the sportsmanship trophy at the end of the season … when in reality if he actually cared enough to deserve that sportsmanship trophy, he wouldn’t show up to practice wearing Vans and a black Korn t-shirt.

You’re just … there, stuck in hellish obscurity yearning for some attention. Meanwhile, your dad is holding another pointless team meeting just so he can show off his comedy routine that makes everyone feel obliged to politely chuckle at his awful jokes while he thinks to himself, “I’m killing here.”

This was my life growing up playing sports:

Age 4: My dad and I arrive at the field for my soccer game. It’s raining, and the Umbro shorts that I am wearing do not keep my legs warm. My dad doesn’t let me wear the pants that I brought because no one else on the team is wearing them. I run crying into the building next to the field and hide there until the game is over.

Age 6: At the last five yards of my freestyle race at a swim meet, I stop swimming and look up to see if I have won the race before I touch the wall. I am ahead of everyone, but they actually touch the wall while I gloat in victory. A lady walks over to give me an eighth-place ribbon. I cry because I should have been first. They start the next heat of swimmers to try to get me out of the pool, but it doesn’t work. Finally, my mom picks up a wet first-place ribbon that she has found on the ground and gives it to me. Satisfied, I get out of the pool.

Age 8: I play catcher for our Little League baseball team — All-Star selection, no less. The league mandates that catchers have to wear a cup for protection. All of the cups at the store are too big, so I wear a rolled up sock. (Editor’s Note: Drew told me that this was actually at age 12, but he didn’t want anyone to know that.)

Age 9: I’m the goalie for the shootout at the end of our Church League soccer game. We lose 5-4, and I don’t really care. But Jim — the best player — starts to cry. Trying to be like Jim, I convince myself that I too am upset and begin to cry. I keep looking over at Jim to see if he sees me crying.

Age 10: My dad, as the coach, gives candy to whoever leads the team in points, assists and rebounds for every game during our Church League basketball season. This quickly backfires when I purposefully shoot on my own basket and grab the rebounds so that I can win the candy.

(This is also the year that I learn to pants people. After I pants my dad during a practice, he kicks me out. My mom has to come and pick me up while I scream at her about how much I hate my dad.)

Age 12: My friends and I all begin to play lacrosse. At this point in his life, Michael is a little overweight — to the point that he has to wear my brother’s (who my mom called “her little cherub”) hand-me-downs. Michael buys all of his pads and stick, goes home, tries them on and walks around his house. After the first minute, his arms get so tired that he starts to drag his stick. Two minutes later, he has to lie down, still wearing his pads. He doesn’t get up till two hours later after his mom has made popcorn doused with a full stick of melted butter.

Side Note: Michael always had a bad temper. If you did anything to upset him, he would yell, “Mom, take Drew home!” I would then have to get into his mom’s car and prepare for a 45-minute drive home as I saw Michael smiling in the front window … eating the frosting from his Dunkaroo’s packet with his finger.

Age 18: Most people stop playing Church League around middle school — not me, I don’t believe in competitive sports. I stuck with it all the way through high school. For my first basketball game of my senior year, I show up wearing a do-rag, but the ref makes me take it off. “Boy, what the hell is on your head?”

Now that I think about it, a lot of these stories end up in me crying. And you probably don’t care because this column doesn’t have any point other than me thinking that my life and what I have to say is interesting.

But, before you get mad, read any of the other columns …

Andrew Webb is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at awebb@cornellsun.com. Confessions of a Mental Patient appears alternate Mondays.