Susie Told Herself “I’m Not Good At Sports” for 30 Years Because of Playground Bullying. Then She Discovered Pickleball
Susie Martinez remembers the exact texture of the gymnasium floor—that slightly sticky feeling under her sneakers—on the day the volleyball hit her in the face when she was at school.
She’d seen it coming. Had put her hands up the way the teacher demonstrated. But her fingers had been in the wrong position, angled wrong, too slow. The ball had barely grazed her hands before it smacked into her cheek and bounced onto the court. The laughter came immediately.
Jessica Harper had said something then—Susie can’t remember the exact words anymore, but she remembers the tone. Exasperated. Loud enough for everyone to hear. The kind of comment that made it clear this was expected, that of course Susie had messed up again.
What Susie remembers more clearly was what happened next. The next day in the locker room, she was in one of the bathroom stalls when she heard voices—Jessica and her friends Madison and Kaylee. They were talking about the game. About their team. Then Susie heard it: “She’s obviously not athletic. Some people just aren’t.” Laughter. Agreement. Another voice: “We’re never going to win with her on our team.”
Susie stayed frozen in that stall, late for her next class, until she was certain they’d gone.
Later that week, another girl from class mentioned—almost sympathetically—that people were saying Susie should probably just sit out during games. A friend told her she’d overheard Jessica saying it was “painful to watch” when Susie played.
Susie can’t recall all the exact words now, three decades later. But she remembers with perfect clarity how her face burned. How something hardened in her chest. How a verdict formed that would follow her for the next thirty years: I’m not good at sports. I don’t belong here. Some people just aren’t built for this.
She’d spent three decades believing it.
When the Lie Becomes Your Identity
By the time Susie hit her fifties, that seventh-grade verdict had shaped countless decisions. She’d forged notes to get out of PE. She’d never joined a gym because group fitness classes felt too exposed, too much like being evaluated. At her daughter’s soccer games, when parents were invited to join the kids for a scrimmage, she’d make excuses about work emails or twisted ankles or anything that kept her safely on the sidelines.
“I’m not good at sports” became her automatic response, said with a self-deprecating laugh that made it sound like a quirky personality trait rather than a wound that had never healed.
The problem was that her body was starting to keep score. Her doctor used phrases like “sedentary lifestyle” and “bone density concerns.” She got winded walking up stairs. Her back ached from too much sitting. The woman who’d spent decades avoiding physical activity because of how it made her feel was now facing the consequences of that avoidance.
“You need to find some form of exercise you enjoy,” her doctor said gently. “Walking, swimming, maybe even a sport—”
“I’m not good at sports,” Susie interrupted, automatic as breathing.
Her doctor paused. “Says who?”
The question caught Susie completely off guard. Says who? Says Jessica Harper. Says Madison and Kaylee. Says every teammate who sighed when I touched the ball. Says the entire seventh grade.
But she didn’t say any of that out loud.
The Sound That Started Everything
Three weeks later, stuck in traffic near the community center, Susie heard a sound—a sharp, rhythmic pop pop pop that cut through the noise of idling engines. After her errands, curiosity pulled her back to investigate.
Through the chain-link fence, she watched people playing pickleball. A woman who looked about seventy, playing alongside someone much younger. A man with a noticeable limp. Two women around Susie’s age, one of whom sent the ball flying wildly over the fence. And here’s what struck her: they both laughed. Real laughter. Not mockery—joy.
Susie watched a serve go directly into the net. The server’s partner gave her a high-five anyway. Someone missed an easy shot and yelled “Nice try!” to themselves without a trace of self-criticism.
Nobody looked like they were being judged. They just looked like they were playing—a concept Susie had never associated with sports. In her experience, sports meant performance, evaluation, failure, humiliation. Not this. Never this.
She sat in her car for twenty minutes, watching, before driving home with that pop pop pop sound echoing in her head.
The Message That Changed Everything
It took Susie three more weeks to open Facebook and search for “pickleball coach near me.” Her hands were shaking as she typed. A dozen options appeared—local groups, beginner clinics, private lessons.
She clicked on a profile for a coach named Rita who described herself as “specializing in absolute beginners and recovering perfectionists.” That felt like a sign.
Susie stared at the message box for fifteen minutes. She typed and deleted half a dozen versions before finally settling on: “Hi, I’m interested in learning pickleball. I have zero experience. Is that okay?”
Rita’s response came within an hour: “Zero experience is my favorite place to start. How’s Thursday at 9?”
Susie almost canceled three times before Thursday arrived.
What Happened on the Court
Rita had short gray hair and an easy smile. For the first twenty minutes, she didn’t even hand Susie a paddle. They just talked. And because Rita asked gently, Susie found herself telling the volleyball story. About Jessica and Madison and Kaylee. About thirty years of believing she was unathletic.
“Here’s what I tell everyone,” Rita said. “Whatever happened to you before wasn’t about sports. It was about mean kids and a system that ranks children by arbitrary physical skills at an age when everyone’s developing differently. That has nothing to do with whether you can learn to hit a plastic ball now. Okay?”
Susie’s throat felt tight. She nodded.
Her first lesson was objectively terrible. She hit the ball into the net approximately one thousand times. She forgot which side to serve from. She swung too early, too late, too hard, too soft.
And something remarkable happened: Rita didn’t sigh. Didn’t roll her eyes. She just adjusted Susie’s grip, told her to bend her knees, and said things like “good try, that was closer.”
By the end of the hour, Susie had hit exactly three balls that went where she wanted them. Three out of maybe three hundred attempts. Rita high-fived her like she’d won a championship.
Susie cried in her car afterward. Not from sadness—from relief. From the realization that she’d been carrying Jessica Harper’s opinion of her for thirty years like it was objective truth.
The Invitation
Susie plays pickleball three times a week now. She’s not the best player on the court, and she’s learning that’s perfectly fine. She’s learning that her body isn’t the enemy—it’s been waiting patiently for three decades for her to stop punishing it for other people’s cruelty.
Last month, another woman in her group admitted she’d avoided sports her whole life because she was always picked last. They recognized each other immediately—survivors of the same casual cruelty that told children they didn’t belong in their own bodies.
If you’re reading this and seeing yourself in Susie’s story—if you’ve spent years avoiding sports because of what someone made you feel in middle school—this is your invitation.
That voice in your head saying you’re not athletic? It’s not yours. It belongs to people who were working out their own insecurities through cruelty, and you don’t have to carry it anymore.
Opening Facebook and typing “pickleball coach” is terrifying. Sending that first message where you admit you’re a beginner or scared or have never been good at sports requires real courage. Your hands will shake. You’ll second-guess yourself.
Do it anyway.
Because on the other side of that message is a version of yourself you’ve never met—someone who discovers what their body can do when it’s not being judged, when it’s just playing.
Susie found Rita. You can find your Rita too. They’re in Facebook groups and community centers, ready to teach people who think they’re unteachable.
You just have to be brave enough to reach out.
The girl who was picked last doesn’t have to stay benched forever. Sometimes she just needs a different game, a kinder voice, and the courage to try one more time.