by Louis Woodley
Chrissy Samuelson walked slowly to the locker room, unable to share her teammates' joy in holding on for a narrow State Girls Soccer playoff win. She'd contributed little towards the victory, and a monumental act of stupidity could have cost them the game. Plus she was now suspended for the first half of their quarterfinal match. Coach Hall was going to chew her butt for sure in the locker room.
It should be noted that 'chew her butt' didn't mean he was going to yell at her; Coach Hall had been there for years, and their team was a perennial championship contender. But he was definitely an old school coach. Their school district allowed paddling for student misbehavior, so the coach had a paddle he kept in his office desk.
When a girl (or more) earned his ire, they'd line up after the practice or game outside his door. One at a time, they'd enter his office and be told to bend with their hands on his desk. He'd explain why they were there, offer them a chance to mitigate their offense, and then give them the number of butt-burning pops he'd decided were appropriate. Then he'd send them off with orders to send in the next girl.
It was a point of pride to never complain about the pops; just remain stoic and accept them. Coach had little respect for 'wussy' girls; if she couldn't tolerate a few smacks on the fanny then she should be sitting in the stands instead of being on the field.
Their teammates in the locker room would watch them head to the showers with the tell-tale paddle marks on their tails. No one was harassed, because they'd all been through the experience themselves. So everyone pretended to see nothing as their teammate walked by with a glowing pink caboose.
And in a few minutes Chrissy would be the latest to make that walk of shame...
Chrissy was one of their best players; as their sole forward on the field she was their most likely scoring threat. So the opposition adopted a strategy to throw her off her game through continuous harassment.
Someone would shadow her constantly, trying to deny her space to maneuver and taking cheap shots at her at every opportunity. She was elbowed and was pushed, a boot would come in late to clip her shin, her jersey was tugged, etc. A certain amount of that was expected give the pressure of the match, but they went way overboard. The officials caught some of it, and even issued a couple of yellow cards, but it continued unabated.
They'd scored in the first half but the contest was still very much in doubt, when Chrissy lost her mind with less than 15 minutes remaining. She'd gotten some open space for once and dribbled past one opponent when a second player hacked her down hard. The referee was right on hand and was already reaching for her yellow card when Chrissy snapped.
She lashed out from the ground with her right foot and caught the girl who had hacked her in the middle of her calf. Naturally the girl fell down like she'd been shot and rolled around in mortal agony. But she made a miraculous recovery immediately after Chrissy was shown a straight red card for retaliation and sent off.
Chrissy was heartsick as she trudged off the field. She'd been tired of the constant cheap shots and in the moment had lashed back at the player who'd taken her down hard. But seeing the referee standing above her pulling out the dreaded red card told her how monumentally stupid she'd just been.
Now her teammates would be forced to play 10 versus 11 for the rest of the match. If their opponents scored a tying goal then the match would continue into extra time with her team shorthanded the whole time.
Then, if they were still tied it would go to penalty kicks. She normally took them for the team, so the most experienced player had just made herself unavailable should things progress that far. Someone else would be forced to take her place among the five girls trying to help them advance.
That moment of anger could knock her team out of the tournament. She was a co-captain and supposed to set an example for her teammates, not doing something idiotic. How could she face them if they lost because of her stupidity? She couldn't even look at Coach Hall as the fourth official escorted her outside the fence, where she'd remain until the match was settled.
Their opponents immediately began pressing forward seeking an equalizer. Her team was in full defensive mode trying to fend them off. In the final minutes the other team threw caution to the wind and pressed everyone but their goalkeeper into the attack. She was up close to midfield; Chrissy's team would desperately clear the ball and then she'd boom it straight back in.
A couple of their chances came agonizingly close before the match was put out of reach. Angela Long intercepted a poor pass and went on a 70 yard race, evading the goalkeeper's attempt to pull her down as she blew past her. She walked the ball into an empty net to seal the 2-0 win.
Chrissy wanted to cry with relief. Her teammates were celebrating but it was in spite of what she'd done, not because of her. And because of the red card she'd be ineligible to play in the first half of their next match. She'd screwed her team over today and now she'd be unable to help them for the first 40 minutes against an even better opponent. Just freaking stupid! What the hell had she been thinking?
That was pretty much what Coach Hall was asking as well. Chrissy was a player he relied on to keep the team level-headed when they were under adversity. He understood her frustration at the crap she'd been constantly subjected to and had barked at the ref about it; but that didn't justify taking a hack at someone's leg in front of the referee.
Only a helpful goalpost had kept the match from being tied; they would have been hard-pressed to do more than stall for penalty kicks if they'd been forced to go to extra time. They'd dodged a massive bullet, but now their leading scorer was unavailable until after halftime of their next match. Why had she made such an idiotic decision to retaliate?
Chrissy finally met her teammates, apologizing for her rash act and congratulating them on advancing without her. They were universally supportive of her; they'd seen what she'd been subjected to, and without her they wouldn't even be in the playoffs.
But they were all subdued and concerned for their teammate, because they knew that Coach Hall was going to be furious about the red card and what his response was going to be. Karen Wilson tried to lighten the mood by pretending to set odds on how many licks she was going to get but the humor fell flat.
While the rest of the girls hit the showers, Chrissy trudged to her coach's office. She would gladly take the licking for endangering her team's chances; she wanted to kick her own ass for what she'd done. But it was going to be even harder to look Coach Hall in the eye and explain why she'd totally lost her mind. She couldn't even explain it to herself, so how could she explain to him?
Coach Hall knew that his star player would be at his door without him having to tell her; she wasn't stupid (recent actions notwithstanding). So he was waiting for her four taps she always used to gain entry to his office.
She was already in tears apologizing for her rash behavior and putting the team in jeopardy. They were the right things to say, but he still roasted her ears before he blistered her rear.
"What did you think you were doing? You knew that would mean an automatic red card, but I guess your petty bullshit revenge was more important to you than the fact you screwed over your entire team and could have ended our season?" Chrissy could only again apologize for not thinking clearly.
But Coach Hall wasn't through yet. "Now you've told everyone that you're a hot head; just keep tweaking her buttons and she's going to lose it and retaliate. From now on everyone is going to do the same thing, just trying to make you snap. If you'd just gotten up and acted like you didn't care what they tried, nothing was going to stop you, you would have looked the bigger player. It was a hard foul, but the ref had already called it and was getting ready to card her. So you gained nothing by hacking her back other than getting your butt kicked out of the game. Now, was that second of revenge worth it?" Chrissy admitted that it hadn't been. "If you want to play at the next level, you've got to keep your head on straight. What do I tell you all about retaliation?"
"Don't do it, because the ref always catches the second person."
"So we're fighting for our lives in a playoff game and you suddenly developed amnesia?"
Chrissy explained that intuitively she knew it was wrong but that with all the crap she'd been subjected to, she'd just lashed out. Even as she was pulling her foot back afterwards she was aware she'd just made a horrid mistake.
"And thanks to that mistake your happy ass is going to be sitting on the bench for the first half of our next match. You'd better have your shit together because you're only going to have 40 minutes to make up for this clusterfuck you've created for us."
Chrissy swore she would run her ass off in the time available to her in their next match to make up for today's fiasco. Hopefully being fresh would play to her advantage, but Coach Hall didn't view that as being better than her playing the first half like she should have been. After she'd again apologized, he told her he was disappointed in the lack of leadership that she'd displayed and therefore it was time to pull out his paddle.
She untucked her jersey from her shorts and rolled it up across her abdomen; she knew that her coach wanted nothing but those shorts (and built-in underwear) between her butt and the paddle he was currently getting out. Soccer shorts don't offer much protection, but she was about to lose even that modicum of defense...
"Untie your shorts."
"Huh?" Chrissy had been whacked an untold number of times after four years on the varsity but she'd never heard that order before.
"I said to untie your shorts, and then put your hands on your head."
She'd never received that order before either. Her fingers fumbled to comply with her shorts while she asked why.
"A: because I told you to; and B: what you did today was beyond stupid, so C: we're going to make sure you never consider retaliating again. Now, put your hands on your head and turn around so you're facing my desk."
Once she did, she felt her coach's fingers reaching inside the hem of her shorts. She desperately resisted dropping her hands to protect them from being pulled down, but seconds later she felt the cool breeze in the office on her exposed backside.
"Now you can go across my desk." Chrissy hurried to comply, still unable to believe that her coach was looking at her naked butt. She'd never heard of anyone getting paddled bare-butt before, although why would anyone admit that to their teammates? She braced her elbows on the desk, bending so that her bottom was poking out for the paddle.
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