Mind Over Matter: Karissa Schweizer's Quest for Equality

"Hey Karissa, meet me in my office when you're done showering."

"Yes Coach. It'll probably be a while, I need to do some laundry first."

"Alright no rush. My door's always open."

Coach pulled the door closed behind him and left the locker room. As soon as he was gone my teammates crowded around me. I told them what he'd said and they looked agitated. They all had an idea of what "meeting with the coach" meant, but they were nervous. We decided that I should go first, but then we all sat there for a minute looking at each other.

"Do you think it's bad?" one of my teammates asked. We knew Coach could be kind of tough on us sometimes but we weren't sure if he was angry about something, or if he just wanted to talk to us about something else, or...we weren't sure how to tell the difference.

"I don't know," I said. "I don't think it will be good though."

One of the girls said she heard from one of her friends that Coach had been yelling at her friend's older sister when she got home from practice last week and that didn't seem like it would be a good sign either. I was just about to say something else when we heard footsteps and voices coming down the hall toward us. Coach and another person were talking and we couldn't hear what they were saying, but we could tell they were getting louder and louder until they reached our locker room door and walked right through it without even knocking or anything. The other person who walked in with Coach was one of the girls' fathers, who happened to be the head coach for our team. He had been standing outside the door waiting for Coach to finish talking to me so he could come in too, but now he was inside our locker room with us instead of out there waiting for us outside the door like he'd planned like a normal human being should have done.

A lot of us looked at each other trying to figure out what was happening now because this hadn't been part of our plan at all and it wasn't making any sense at all. My teammate whispered to me that she thought maybe I should go first after all because maybe this was going to be a punishment or something? But I didn't want anyone thinking that because no matter what happened, whether I went first or last or whatever, this meeting with Coach wasn't going to be good for any of us because nobody ever goes in there by themselves unless they are in trouble somehow, so why would someone take one person in there by themselves? None of this made any sense at all!

The two coaches stood up against the wall closest to them with their arms crossed over their chests staring at all of us sitting on the bench opposite them with our arms crossed over our chests too trying not to look nervous even though we were obviously nervous because we didn't know what was happening! The only thing we knew for sure is that whatever was happening wasn't good! And everyone knows when someone says "meet me in my office" it means you are going to get in trouble! That's just how life works! But this time me and my teammates were going to show them something different! This time we weren't going to let them tell us that just because we aren't allowed on Team A anymore doesn't mean you can stop us from using Team B's showers! Because what did they expect us to use? The showers at our houses? In public? In front of everybody? In front of *family*?? *Shame*!!! They could kiss *our* asses!!!