Not learning a foreign language in high school was a regret of mine. In my small Kansas high school, only Spanish was offered but was at the same time as band, English and chorus. I couldn’t give up my music.
In college, I tried French because my mother said it would be a fun language to learn. I never had the ear for it.
So, I settled for learning the language of sports. Covering a myriad of sports, you must know the language of each. It’s tough sometimes.
One word — shoot — means the same in basketball, soccer and trap shooting — hit the target, the basket and the net and score.
Over the years as a sports journalist, you pick up the languages as you go along. When I came to Iowa, I had to look up motorsports language for the Iowa Speedway events, rugby and trap shooting.
For the most part, each sport has its own terms to describe play and players involved. Earlier this week, I used the term rugger, which ia a description of a rugby player.
Just take this spring, we have golf, tennis, soccer, track and field, trap shooting and rugby going on for Newton and area high school athletes. Factor in NASCAR, IndyCar racing at Iowa Speedway coming this summer along with softball and baseball for the high schools, and there’s a lot of language to catalog.
A phrase I loved to hear while I was growing up was — on the crack of the bat — during a baseball game. It can’t be used for high school baseball and softball. It refers to the sound of the ball hitting a wooden bat. For high school games, you can use the phrase “ping of the bat,” but it’s not the same.
High school baseball and softball teams are in practice mode now here in Iowa. The 2017 seasons open on May 22 and 23 in our area, which is just after the state high school track meet but in the middle of soccer, golf and tennis postseasons.
The language lesson continues to swirl.
Track and field has blocks, sprints, relays, handoffs, batons, shot put, discus and shuttle hurdle.
In golf, we have par, birdie, bogey, stroke, putt, chip, irons, swing, short game and long game. And the low score wins.
Tennis has love and deuce. It is even legal to use a backhand in tennis.
What about soccer’s mark up, man on, push up, corner kick, strike, dribble (which is done with feet not hands as in basketball), goal, header and shootout. The only player who can use their hands is the goalkeeper.
As for motorsports, there’s so many terms which are still foreign to me. I use a cheat sheet. I learned what drivers and others mean when they say a track has character. The technical terms for the racing world are stumble blocks for me at times. Again, a cheat sheet.
The racing world presents me the best example of a foreign language of sports. After four years, I’m slowly developing my ear for it.
Contact Jocelyn Sheets
at jsheets@newtondailynews.com