On being a professional athlete

Some time back, Russell, a fellow pedicabbie, approached me about getting involved with a foundation he had founded. The purpose of the foundation as my colleague explained it was to get professional athletes engaged in philanthropy and community service.

Reading the "OK,-but-what-does-that-have-to-do-with-me?" look on my face, he said to me: "You know we're professional athletes, right?"

My first reaction was sheer bafflement. We ARE?... I AM?... How do you figure that? But after giving it some thought, I decided that Russell had a point.

Pedaling three- or four-hundred pounds (occasionally much more) of human flesh around all night long is physically demanding, of course. But that fact alone just isn't enough to qualify us as professional athletes. I have worked brief stints as a roofer, a plumber's helper, and an oilfield roustabout. These jobs may have been more physically demanding than pedicabbing; but roofers, plumbers and roustabouts are clearly not professional athletes.

The thing that we pedicabbies have in common with sports stars is that we rely on a mixture of athleticism and entertainment to make our living. Qualities like speed, strength, stamina, and physical skill are vital, of course; but ultimate success requires a bit of showmanship as well. That's true for Lebron James, and it's true for me. (Yes, I'm putting myself in the same category with Lebron James, but only to the extent that you put a chihuahua and a rhinoceros in the same category by acknowledging that they both have four legs.)

So if Russell and I are right that I'm a professional athlete (technically "semi-pro" now that I'm only pedicabbing part-time), this is bizarre turn of events to say the least. If anyone in the class of '84 at Pearl River High School had been named "least likely to grow up to be a professional athlete", I'm pretty sure I would have won that distinction. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I would have utterly crushed the competition! Let's put it this way. When it came time to pick teams, most of the girls went higher in the draft than me. To this day I can't hit a softball with a bat or catch it with a glove.

My junior year in high school I finally worked up the nerve to start playing touch football with the guys at lunch. I soon earned the nickname Swivel because I was so uncoordinated that it seemed to my classmates as though all my body parts were randomly rotating independently of each another.

Who would have dreamed back then that at the age of 46, I, Mark "Swivel" Orfila would find myself a professional tricyclist! You know, I've never been to any class reunions. Never had much desire till now. But  I'm thinking maybe I'll go to the next one. Maybe I'll wear shorts so everyone can admire my monster calves!