You play ball like a girl.

It's the last thing any self-respecting male athlete wants to hear. But I found out the hard way that the only reason I don't play ball like a girl is because I play it much worse.

For reasons still not entirely clear to me, I desired to practice with the Miami University women's soccer team. The intramural sports junkie part of me wanted to experience competition at the DI-A level. The arrogant guy part of me wanted to prove that picking a then 3-7-1 team of women ensured a certain degree of success.

As the adage says, pride comes before the fall.

After 10 minutes of light jogging and stretching to warm up, head coach Bobby Kramig gathered us around for the first drill.

Essentially, we played a giant game of keep-away. Half the girls wore bright yellow jerseys to distinguish a team from the white practice uniforms. Those wearing red (the two goalies and I) were all-time offense. The objective was to pass the ball around without turning it over. Teams received points for one-touch passes between teammates.

Although this provided a relatively simple way for me to get my feet wet, one fear still gripped me:

"What if they just ignore me and I never touch the ball?"

The drill certainly had the potential to feature me running around as invisible Mr. Cellophane without seeing one pass come my way.

Several minutes into the game, however, a new fear replaced this original one: failure.

Junior Kersta Carlson broke the awkward tension and fed me the ball. In an attempt to earn a point, I prepared to tap it straight back to her, only to watch in dismay as the ball shanked off my foot right to a defender.

"Come on Dan," assistant coach Shane Meridith mockingly screamed from the sideline.

Next came a long-pass drill.

Cones marked off a portion of the field into four linear 10-foot sections, with the two center quadrants divided by four-foot flags. The object was to kick the ball over the flags while standing in the far sector. Three quadrants away waited a teammate ready to receive the 40-foot aerial pass. Players received a point for each successfully completed cross.

"Good," I thought. "No variables here. Just me and the ball. I can handle this."

Apparently my definition of "handling" it meant only scoring on one of five attempts-and that was with my right foot. When Kramig made us switch to the left side, I became a literal hazard to the team. Three of my five lefty attempts nearly hit another player in the back of the head, with my other two harmlessly trickling to the base of the flags.

One for 10-I guess even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

Kramig informed me that he scores each drill to determine his weekend starting line-ups. Past performances in games do not matter, only the finals results on the practice stat sheet.

"It keeps practice meaningful," Kramig said. "The girls have to earn their spots each and every week."

This system kept me out of the next drill in order to be fair to the players. The team divided into four groups of five and set up a short field no bigger than broomball rinks at the Goggin Ice Center. A four-on-four round robin tournament consisting of quick three-minute games then ensued.

For anyone who thinks soccer is too slow and boring without enough action, this may be the cure. Sharp passes zipped around the small playing area, with shots liable to come at any moment from any position. I longed to take part in the action but knew that doing so would seriously handicap whatever unfortunate team I played for.

When the final game came to a close, Kramig came over to inform me that I could participate in the next drill.

"Oh good," I thought, restless from sitting around. "I hope it's another fun game like a scrimmage or something."

My optimism quickly faded, however, as I saw the players line up at the far end of the field.

"What are we doing," I naively asked Carlson, the only player on the team I knew.

"Hundies," she replied.

As coach Meridith eagerly informed me, a "hundy" is running until you want to puke your guts out and then running some more. In order to assess individual fitness, Kramig makes his players run 10 lengths of the soccer field with a required finish time of 3:40.

Still not entirely aware of what I was getting myself into, I instinctively sprinted off the line upon hearing Kramig give the start command.

"I may not make for much of a soccer player, but I can run just fine," I though, confidently pacing the team on the opening lap.

All the girls in my heat were running against the clock, concerned only with breaking the 3:40 threshold and improving on past times.

Not me. Competitive by nature I had only one goal in mind: finish ahead of as many girls as possible.

"Keep going Dan, you're almost half way done," Carlson encouragingly cheered from the sideline as I rounded out lap four.

That's when it hit me:

"I'm not even half way."

As fatigue set in, I suddenly I became aware of what I had gotten myself into. Now I understood why multiple players told me not to run if I didn't want to. Ten full lengths is a lot longer than it sounds, especially when you're on the clock.

By lap seven, every single player in my heat had passed me except one. Senior Allison Berkey, sporting a large knee brace in recovery from her second ACL tear, pulled even with me on the far side of the field.

"OK," I thought. "I have no hope of catching up with the rest of the team, but I can at least save some dignity by not losing to the girl with a giant brace on her leg."

I kept even with Berkey for a little bit, but she inevitably pulled away on lap nine. Heading down the home stretch I lagged half of the field behind.

"Finish strong Dan," coach Meridith screamed with his usual harsh, demanding voice now laced with a hint of sympathy.

My legs felt like lead. I desperately wanted to sprint to the finish but fatigue reduced me to a pathetic jog.

With everyone in my heat done, all the attention turned squarely to me. It never occurred to me that 20 college girls cheering me on could feel so belittling. It's like having your girlfriend beat you at horse and then tell you how great your lay-ups look these days.

I stumbled past the back line and collapsed. My time clocked in at an even four minutes but I no longer cared about results. I just wanted to go home-right after I regained the strength to pick myself up off the field of course. Coach Meridith was right. I wanted to throw up.

My performance is only remembered at practice as a motivating tool. Carlson told me that the next day Kramig insulted them by yelling "you run hundies like Dan."

It's the last thing any self-respecting female soccer player at Miami wants to hear.