Page 84 of Teaching the Kot'oll Coach

Telke shoves his lower hands into his pockets and doesn’t seem to be excited. I thought he liked floatball. As far as I know, this place is a tourist attraction in the city. Every floatball fan comes to visit and they like this place, yet...

Away from the racks and racks of clothes and caps, there is an area selling floatball bats and floatballs with the team’s logo.

He stops by the bin of floatball bats. “Look at these. I used to want one since I was a kid.”

Is he talking about getting a birthday gift or something?

He runs his finger along the bat. “But I thought I’d get one without buying one.”

Huh? Is he planning to rob the souvenir store or something?

He turns to me. “I know you aren’t that interested in floatball, but you know that the teams use their own bats, right?”

“Oh, you mean you used to want to join this team.”

He gives a sad smile. “Yeah... I used to. I mean, technically, I played in the team for a few years.”

I stare at him with my eyes wide open. That’s not what I expected. I would have seen him in passing on news channels, right? But it’s not that I’ve ever paid attention to sports news, so... maybe I saw him, but...

He lets out another sigh. “At least it was fun when I was with the team. I suppose that’s a once-a-lifetime experience.”

“So, you’re actually pretty good at floatball, huh?” I nudge his side, hoping he’ll feel better.

He muses. “I’m decent. I played on the field for some time too. At least I made it off the bench.”

“Hey, that already puts you up there as the top 0.1% of the strongest players in the city, probably even higher.”

“When I was a kid, I dreamed of flying from planet to planet playing floatball. I know it is pretty silly to think that I can make that come true, given the odds. But I’ve worked hard most of my life trying to get there.”

“But you quit the team later and become a coach.”

He nods. “I’m not a bad player, but I know I’m never going higher than that. Our city has a powerful team, and we make it high in the planet-level tournament. But I’m not a player who is strong enough to represent our planet. There are too many...” he looks at me, “Real monsters out there who have the stars aligned for them. They work very hard, with the perfect genetics and talents. I just can’t get up there. I mean... I know I’ve already made it further ahead than most beings can even dream of, but still... You’d never fulfill every single goal in your life.”

I hug him. “You are amazing regardless.”

“I didn’t live up to my dream. And... I still remember the day I quit the team and was on my own again. It feels like the most absolutely wrong decision that can ever be made in the history of beings.”

It can’t be that bad... If his goal is to play at a planet level, his time is limited as with all sports players, so...

He continues, “You have no idea how happy my father was when I told them I quit the team. He has always thought that it’s dumb anyway.”

I hug him tighter. “No, it’s not dumb to love a sport.”

“For him, it’s dumb.”

“Did he make you quit?”

“He talked about it for years, every time I was home. I just ignored him all the way through my floatball career.”

He takes a breath. “I decided to quit myself at that time. I could feel that my performance was sliding compared to the new ones joining the team. I couldn’t get up there and I knew I’d tapped my potential by then. I could have stayed a few more years until they kicked me off, but then... I decided that I could become a coach and stay in the floatball scene for longer. I could be building my coaching career a few more years over staying on the team for the same period of time.”

It sounds like a rational decision, but it had to be hard for him to make the decision.

He puts up a smile. “Sorry, I don’t mean to make it heavy like this. I just thought you may be interested in visiting more places in the city.”

I squeeze his hand, whichever hand that’s closest to me. “Thank you for telling me this much.”

He gently squeezes my hand. “Maybe I’m just trying to tell you that it’s okay to not make the perfect decision. I don’t even know whether I made a good choice by now. I hope I did, but who knows.”

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