There are two aspects of this. This first affected me personally – Aspies are not good in a team environment. I am a good team player, and perhaps I try harder for the team than most – but from the team’s point of view I am not one of them as much as I should be. I don’t participate in rituals as readily – it took me years of adulthood before I would shower with my team mates, for example.
To advance in team sports you need to be social. It’s not a written requirement, but it is certainly an understanding. As a young adult I was the finest attacking rugby player (winger) in my region. Being an All Black wasn’t ever likely, but had I been more social, I could’ve played rep rugby.
My speed was obviously a physical inheritance. But there are plenty of top sprinters who can’t play rugby. When I was heading for a try line, and three opposition players were making a bee line to tackle me, somehow I always knew the paths to take and the moments to change direction. I always considered it to be instinct, but perhaps it is the sort of calculation suited to Aspies?
Defensively I was pretty useless. I didn’t care as much about spoiling someone else’s moment as deeply as I tried to win on the offense. I was slightly built, and the only time I considered joining the only local gym… well of course I didn’t achieve any more than peeking through the front door.
I spent years wondering why I wasn’t called up to play for my region – as if raw ability was the only criteria. I literally had no idea.
So I’m curious about the sporting abilities of Aspies. In everyday life I’m moderately clumsy. I bump into things, knock things over, fumble. I think, for me, it is a lack of care rather than inability. Because when it comes to catching a ball or side-stepping a speeding car I’m pretty good. I am unsteady walking but I’m close to perfect running…
Perhaps I have enough Aspy to be clumsy, but I’m enough not Aspy to be good at hand-eye and running sports? Yeah, I’m not a good example, not someone to use as an example. Is this similar…?
Jack, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, has been nominated for the award after producing a series of art pieces.
He only started painting portraits to help him overcome difficulties recognising facial expressions, a difficulty encountered by many people with Asperger’s Syndrome, but since then has earned a number of commissions, including designing a new sculpture outside his school after teachers recognised his talent.
The teenager is also a top rugby player, playing flanker for Cambridgeshire under 17s.
