Plain Jane

“Okay, class. It’s time for PE with Mrs. Dawkins. Line up at the door, and I’ll escort you outside,” Mrs. McIntyre said.

PE. All of the fifth-grade boys loved PE—Physical Education. But for us, it was organized recess. We only had PE once a week, and we typically played group games like dodgeball, scatter-ball, Red Rover, or kickball. I’m not sure what was educational about it, but it was nice to have an adult like Mrs. Dawkins around to referee our disputes. During regular recess games, we often spent more time arguing over a ruling than we did playing the game.

Today, it was kickball.

Mrs. Dawkins divided the teams evenly and lined the kicking team up in alphabetical order. She ignored the alphabet enough to be sure that we alternated boys and girls. This was mainly because the Jenkins twins and the Johnson twins were all good male athletes, and they might have dominated the middle of the lineup. My team was first up to kick. Our opponents spread out around the field to defend. The bases were laid out, and Mrs. Dawkins rolled the red rubber ball to the pitcher.

Let the game begin.

Lisa Arnold kicked a pop fly to the second baseman that should have been an easy out, but the ball bounced off Ricky Walter’s chest, and Lisa made it safely to first base. Chris Brunson made it to second base on a deep kick to left-center field. Lisa scored our first run. I squeezed a kick between the third baseman and the foul line to bring Chris in for a score. We rallied for the next several kickers until there were two outs and the bases loaded.

Jane Washington was up next. The boys called her Plain Jane. Never to her face, though. She didn’t deserve to be picked on. She was quiet and unassuming. Not particularly pretty, but not ugly. Just plain. She didn’t have many friends—not that she wasn’t friendly. She just wasn’t very talkative or social. She was one of the classmates who was always attentive, always had her work done on time, always made good grades, yet was almost invisible.

She didn’t appear to be athletic. She didn’t run around and play games at recess. She and her two girlfriends always just stood at a distance from the rest and talked until it was time to go back to class.

But Plain Jane could kick the snot out of a kickball.

Jane didn’t disappoint. When the pitcher rolled the ball to her, she pounded it over the center fielder’s head. Jane circled the bases with an efficient, smooth stride for a grand slam. Four runs scored. High fives were circulated all around. Plain Jane was the class kickball star.

We moved from our small South Carolina town to Virginia later that month, and I never heard from my fifth-grade classmates again. But that particular kickball game was stuck in my brain for some reason.

Now, ten years later, I turned on ESPN to find the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship game in progress. The point guard for the South Carolina Gamecocks had just made her fifth three-point shot in a row when I heard the commentator say, “Jane Washington is on fire! The small-town South Carolina native is showing off to the whole country tonight!”

Dang! I didn’t know she could shoot a basketball, too.

You go, Plain Jane!