Editor’s Note: This guest post is by Sporty McBangin', an anonymous female writer who is the author of Chasing the Jersey, a brand-new blog about sex and life with Bro athletes. Some are professionals, some college laxers — all, just like her, will remain anonymous. The lessons Sporty has learned from the “jersey chase” are as insightful as they are funny, and we think you’ll pick up a few tips of your own for the next time a jersey chaser tracks you down.

I have spent the last six years of my life or so dating, hooking up with, befriending, and casually banging a whole lot of athletes. It wasn’t a “planned” thing. I managed the men’s lacrosse team in college and had I gotten through those four years without some kind of physical contact with a dude who used a stick or a ball or a puck or a hoop, it would have been the sign of the end times. Lacrosse, hockey, soccer, baseball: You name the sport, I’ve probably rocked an oversized sweatshirt with some team mascot or a player’s number on it on the tragic hung-over walk/train ride/drive home. I’ve been the constant cheerleader when they pitched a bad game, the partner in diet hell when they needed to lose some weight during the season, the other woman when their girlfriend’s fake b**bs just weren’t as nice as my real (albeit small, perky) ones. Oh yeah, my knowledge of power plays, face offs, man-up situations, and penalty kicks is matched only by my knowledge of sexual positions and Victoria’s Secret Cheeky patterns — in all, a combination for disaster.

But now, at the ripe old age of four months shy of 25, I can look back on all the terribly embarrassing situations I’ve found myself in during playoffs and warm-ups and post-games, and say that not only did I have a f*cking good time, but that I also learned a thing or two about life from the boys on the field and in the bedroom.

1. ‘I just started seeing someone’ is athlete code for ‘If you Google me, I might be engaged.’

I have a lot of buddies who play soccer, many of which represented the United States in a huge way over the summer in South Africa. Some of my biggest bender nights have been spent in soccer towns like Chicago and Philly waiting for the boys to meet up at a bar. But one of the best nights I’ve ever had was in a makeshift training room at four in the morning in a hotel, drinking warm Coronas with some of the boys, including one I had a little bit of a previous thing with. Rumor had it my soccer hottie had recently found himself in a relationship, but there was no solid confirmation. So when we started making out prior to me leaving, I assumed that he was maybe still single and on the market.

“I have a condom,” I said. Obviously I come prepared to all occasions. I could see the internal struggle he was going through. It was painful. It was as if he was trying to choose between saving his mother’s life and his father’s. And I knew it was coming. The admission. And I wondered why in God’s name it was coming while half of my clothes were off.

“I just started seeing someone, and I’m trying to be good,” he blurted out, wiping his face.

“It’s no problem,” I shrugged. Eh, I kind of knew it. I just expected to be informed prior to us, you know, making out and chatting about condoms. No big deal.

It only took some limited Google searching to find out that “just started seeing someone” meant “I took her to an award show two months ago, and we’ve been dating for nearly seven months.” I mean, credit where due, I feel like this is as close to faithful as a lot of athlete girlfriends can hope for.


2. Do not let a pitcher touch you down below after he pitched a rough game.

I love the Yankees. The relationship I have with the New York Yankees rivals many of the relationships I have with immediate members of my family. So when I started dating a pitcher who was in the Yankees’ minor league system, I automatically thought all my dreams were going to be fulfilled.

Fast-forward to me spending the majority of my college summer breaks in random-ass cities like Charleston, South Carolina, and Tampa, Florida. My boyfriend lived in a two-bedroom apartment with no cable and five guys camped out in his living room. After struggling to pull the keys from guys who were twice my weight and 10 inches taller than me following heavy nights of drinking, baseball became a lifestyle, not a love.

Those who have ever pitched on any level (or dated a pitcher for that matter) know two things — it’s way harder than it looks, and it really takes a toll on the throwing shoulder and arm. My boyfriend had already had surgery on his arm, so his post-game icings and wrappings were a necessity. As were his post game massages with the topical analgesic Atomic Balm. Think Vics Vapor Rub but 50 times more powerful.

My boyfriend and I fought a lot, which (among other things) took a serious toll on our sex life. So on the random occasions we were both in the mood, we took advantage. The second we walked into the apartment, the icepack came off, along with our clothes, and we began fooling around. He even tried to be a little romantic and warm me up before we got going. And good f*cking God, did he warm me up.

“Stop, stop, stop.” I was kissing him, but pushed myself up on my elbows.

“What’s wrong?” He looked troubled at the fact that I was already calling it quits.

“It hurts,” I said, looking down at myself. “It hurts. It’s burning.”

“What do you mean it’s burning?” he asked, looking at my thighs.

“It’s burning, oh my God.” I got up off the bed and struggled to the bathroom.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“What’s on your hands?” I screamed, running the water in the shower.

“Nothing, there’s nothing—” but he cut off. At this point I thought my nether regions were being seared with invisible cigarettes. He was leaning in the bathroom, looking at me confused from the doorway, when his face went blank.

“What is it?” I begged.

“Um, it’s Atomic Balm,” he said quietly.

“What the f*ck is Atomic Balm?” I screamed.

“It’s like this rub stuff for my shoulder, it’s a heating thing for my muscles.”

“WHY IS IT ON YOUR HANDS?”

“I put some on my shoulder in the car before I left the field!” he shouted defensively.

“And you didn’t think to wash your hands?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would bother you,” he said.

“Okay cool.” I was so mad at that point, I honestly wanted to grab my razor from the shower and slice off his balls. “Next time I iron my hair, I’ll forget to turn off the flatiron and leave it on the bed under your balls. I don’t think it will bother you.”

I hooked up with three other baseball players after him. And I made sure all of them had thoroughly washed their hands first.


3. Teammates share everything.

Like I said, I managed the men’s lacrosse team when I was in college, and I can’t lie, it was one of the best parts of my four years there. Sure, the rumors and descriptions of lacrosse players are entirely true — teams are mostly made up of cocky hotties with good hair, who more often than not have a lot of money and zero accountability. But they were also the big brothers I never had. Brothers with whom I happened to have incestuous relationships.

Surprisingly, I only slept with three guys on a team of about 40. And the third guy came years after college, so he didn’t even really count. But I did get drunk and roll around nekked with a lot of them. And none of them seemed to care about the others.

“Hey, are you with Ryan?” one guy I had hooked up with two weeks earlier texted me as I struggled to pull my shirt on in the dorm room of one of the freshman middies.
 
 “Um, yeah,” I texted back. “Why?”

“When you’re done boning, tell him I need my 157 textbook”

“Uh, okay?”

“Is he as big as me?”

“Not talking about it,” I said.

“I’ll find out at practice tomorrow anyway. Don’t forget about the text book.”

Sharing is cool, and sometimes good for the environment, but do me a favor and don’t take a page from Tony Parker’s playbook — sharing your former teammate’s wife, or girlfriend, is not cool.


4. All athletes wear boxer briefs.

This might be one of the most tragic things I found out through the last six years. TRAGIC. Only one guy in the numerous I’ve dated, banged, or fooled around with has worn actual boxer shorts. All the rest wear the stereotypical boxer briefs, and they are terrible. I’m an underwear connoisseur, and I can remember so many times when a hot soccer player or a good-looking hockey dude took off his pants and met my face of “aw f*ck, are you serious?” I get it — boxer briefs hold your junk in place and are similar to spandex and jocks and all that shit. But don’t you guys care at all?

The thought process that goes into my underwear selection before I see any athlete is the equivalent to the thought I put into where I was going to go to college. It can make or break a situation. Sure, it’d be super easy to rock my Victoria’s Secret cotton granny panties with the rainbow giraffe print. But you know what’s better? Looking like a goddamn model when you take my clothes off. Looking like something remotely close to anything you’d like to think about when you jerk off. My goal is not to be comfortable nor is it to look like I haven’t even made it to second base yet. So athletes, do me, and the rest of the girls you hook up with, a solid and wear boxers that aren’t simultaneously tight and loose. They make your legs look thin and creepy. Wear boxers I can put on after we bang. Because you know what? As great as those black-lace Cheeky thongs looked when I was straddling you, they are now damp and uncomfortable and I’d much rather throw on your comfy, argyle-print boxers, roll them four times and look kind of adorable with my messy sex head and your oversized boxers.

And if you’re going to go the route of the boxer briefs, at least do it as well as a soccer guy I once hooked up with did them — short cut, bordering on “dancers in gay clubs wear it this short,” with old-school Batman and Robin cartoons complete with “POW!” and “BAM!” on them. If you’re going to wear unappealing boxers that I can’t steal, at least make them funny, for f*ck’s sake.