More parks, less dodgeball

Do we really need more parks in Glendale, and is dodgeball a real sport? Two seemingly unrelated questions.

Let me begin with answering the second question. No, dodgeball is certainly not a sport. And I hate it.

The source of my hate goes much deeper than the movie “Dodgeball,” starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn.

It goes back to my childhood in a far away land, where sports were generally discouraged in the name of “real” education.

In this exotic land where children were often isolated from social ills associated with modern industrial society, sports were never a priority. On the other hand, an education model based on some Western European curriculum left no room for extra-curricular activities. In ninth grade, our coursework included, physics, chemistry, algebra, English, social science, biology, Persian literature, Armenian literature.

I think the plan was to produce the future doctors and engineers of this emerging Middle Eastern state. As it turned out, it produced many engineers, doctors, architects and dentists for America.

In the midst of all this intense education, we had an hour of physical education per week. Beginning from the first grade, the boys anxiously looked forward to this single period for a competitive match of soccer. Back in the day, the girls were not too much into sports. Going to the gym is a new fad (and hopefully a permanent one) among the girls of my tribe.

If we were lucky, our physical education teacher would show up for that period and would take us down to the asphalted yard.

The struggle to kick the ball around would continue.

In an effort to encourage the girls to have some kind of activity, the instructor would sacrifice the boys. Instead of letting boys do what they craved most, he would make us play dodgeball with the girls. As my friends and I shamefully handled the soccer ball with our hands, we would continue to beg the instructor to allow us a few minutes for our favorite sport. The result was often some kind of a sanction for the upcoming week.

Outside the school our choices were limited. Tehran, the cosmopolitan center where I was born (at the time, home to 8 million people), boasted two major public parks. And the only job of the “park police” was to make sure children stayed on the unfriendly gravel and did not cross over into the grass. By default, my soccer buddies and I would end up taking our trade to the streets. We did not shy away from playing in light traffic. To simulate the bounce of a real leather ball, we used an inexpensive plastic ball, which we would deflate to get the feel of a real ball on grass. The combination of the airy ball and the hard ground, almost without exception, resulted in knee swelling and tenderness by the age of 10 or 11.

So when my hour of glory arrived, and I was selected to play on actual grass in a real stadium for our school team, I was already suffering from pain in my knees. My mom and I paid a visit to the doctor. He gave me two grim choices: “You have two choices, you can be in a cast for six months, or stay away from a ball for a year.”

This was my second biggest disappointment in life. The first being Holland losing to West Germany in the 1974 soccer World Cup final. The third, and the greatest, was yet to come in the form of separation of family due to political upheaval and revolution. So when I arrived in America and signed up at a public high school in Sacramento, one of my first tasks was to try out for the varsity soccer team.

I had to pinch myself when I saw my name listed on the team selection. I was told to pick up my team uniform from the assistant coach and report for practice the next day, on real grass, at an actual field, with a real ball. My excitement was boundless.

When it comes to sports and extracurricular activities, kids are lucky in America. From very young age, they can be involved in AYSO teams, basketball tournaments and many other forms of activity. And as a teenager, there are boundless choices, whether it’s high school team sports, tournaments, or just kicking the ball around at the neighborhood park. So do we need more parks in Glendale? Of course, we do. In America, we always wants more, and appreciate even less. Yet, some perspective from a one-and-half generation immigrant (arriving in early teens) does not hurt.