Fitness Crimes

Prologue

"We will now be hearing from our Field Hockey captain, River Jones," the principal says before giving the mike to me. I slowly stepped onto the poduim and looked up into the stands.  Familiar faces smiling down on me as I released a breath and looked down at every member of my team.

"Behind every strong captain, stands a team that refuses to let their captain down. Behind every strong coach stands a team who respects him and behind every strong team stands the word dedication. I do not believe that every one of us came here through pure talent, not me or coach or any of my team members. It took dedication, from all those every morning jog sessions to the late night skill practise. I am in no way a motivational speaker, but today I stand before you and I would like your help. Not to cheer for every goal or bite your nails for every mistake, but rather for you to have the dedication like each and every one of my team members to just show up and support. Thank you," I step down from the poduim and walk towards my team, that is standing in a line with bright smiles on their face and pure dedication in their eyes.

"That's our girl," I hear my best friend loudly whisper as I step in line beside him looking up at the silent crowd. Most captains have the tendency to create a balistic crowd and I felt my heart drop as the silence stayed. Then a soft clap was heard from beside me and I looked up to see my whole team starting to clap until the whole school followed and my balistic crowd was made.

"Go Tigers!" Was all that the principal needed to say to fuel the crowd even more before we were allowed to leave.

"You ready for tonight,"Hein asks me as he places his arm around my shoulders. His brown eyes boring into my grey ones.

"Always."

~•~

"Please all raise your glass for our amazing captain who indeed did score the winning goal," a loud voice says as I step inside the locker room. All the guys raise imaginary glasses as Gary stands on one of the benches giving a speech," we would hereby like to thank the best captain that this school has ever seen and as the tradition go the new captain must be appointed. Drum roll please."

All eyes turned to me as I joined Gary. The sound of everyone clapping their hands against the thighs went silent,"As you all know, the Captain must be chosen from one of the seniors of the team but the problem is that most of you are seniors next year.  Therefore I am proud to say that your captain for 2018 will be our very own Jack Hugens and our vice-captain will be Fred Jepson," several people cheered as Jack and Fred stood closer yo receive the captain's tradition.

Each year the captain and vice, Gary, have the honour of performing a tradition to innitiate those who will follow in their steps.

"Unfortunately we have decided that in order for you to earn these," Gary starts whilst holding up the Captain and Vice-captain badges which will be worn on your first team jackets and on the uniform for the first teams." You will have to do something and not receive something."

"Which is?"Jack asks curiously

"Well, tonight there is a victory party at Andy's house and I believe that it is also the place where both of your girlfriends will be tonight. Therefore we have decided that you have to borrow some party clothes from them and wear it at the party. After about an three hours you will be allowed to change and remember those party clothes include underwear," I explain with a mischievous smirk on my face. Gary and I thought long and hard before we finally decided to do this. They actually have it easier in comparison to what we had to do a year before.

The previous captains decided to make a list of random things we had to complete in a night and at the end of it all, we found our badges stuffed into our lockers in the locker room. According to them they tried to teach us that every struggle in your life as a captain will lead to something you've had all along, but didn't try hard enough to look for it.