Project 2

POV Adaptation of Varsity by Brock Kingsley

My blood spilled on the floor, as red as the stalls and benches. I was fourteen when I was beaten by another boy in the locker room. Another group of boys watched as I hit the ground, they did not try to stop him.

They were a class of football and basketball players. I wish I could have been one of them. I hated the fact that I was short and egg-shaped, pale and doughy. Even so, I wanted to be like them. Maybe if I told them about my athletic ability, I could be a part of their group. I told them that I could ball, and that I would be on the Varsity squad. They seemed to like that a lot. They started to call me “Varsity”. Every morning, they would tease me and try to test my skills. But they were never really testing my skills, they just wanted to laugh at me. I didn’t want to retaliate because I knew they were right.

I recall this one time when they hid my clothes while I was in the shower. They watched as I frantically went through my stall, with one hand clutching my towel, looking for the clothes that weren’t there. When I finally gave up, I looked at them and begged for them to show me some sort of grace, even if only for that moment. I wasn’t mad at them, I hoped they would give me a break. I felt like a homeless man, begging on the side of a street, asking for food. They only laughed harder. The cold air of the locker room combined with the boys laughing at my naked body made me shiver with fear. My vision started to blur as tears started to form at the corner of my eyes. I couldn’t understand why they would do this to me. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t.

They eventually stopped being satisfied with stealing my clothes and hiding them in the trash. One day, as I was walking out of the shower, I caught a fist to the side of my head. The group of boys that regularly stole my clothes were also there. Maybe if I didn’t back down, and try to fight back, they might see me as strong, like them. I couldn’t do anything but drop my towel and put my hands up. The boys were crowding around me as if they were spectators in a boxing match. They cheered as I was beaten to the ground by the other kid. I thought that they might have been impressed by me. Instead, they kicked my clothes into the shower, and left me bleeding on the floor.

I went home that day, with a black eye starting to form. I wasn’t able to hide it from my parents. They wanted to find out who hit me. Naturally, I didn’t want to tell them. I wanted to keep it a secret, but they kept pressing. I named the boys who were stealing my clothes, and the boy who beat me up. After my mom made the phone call, I realized that I will never be a part of their group. I would never be a part of the Varsity squad.

Artist Statement

I chose to adapt the story “Varsity” by Brock Kingsley because I thought that it would be easier than the other stories. I think it would have been easier to adapt Varsity than the other stories because it very clearly showed the different points of view from the main characters. I tried to make it clear that the kid who was being bullied, didn’t realize that he was being bullied because he was a Special Education student. I don’t understand how they think, because I have never experienced it myself, but I feel like it would be kind of similar to how I wrote about it.

Some challenges that I encountered while making my adaptation was trying to decide if I should do two poems, or one short story. This was a challenge because I initially thought that doing two poems would be easier, but the only short poem on the list was “I Heard A Fly Buzz” by Emily Dickinson. I solved this problem by just doing one short story, which ended up being Varsity. Through this project, I learned that different POVs can really affect a person’s story, and how they might see things differently than other people.