宮崎大學で2013年に出題された5題中4題めの問題です。月曜日と金曜日に、パラグラフ毎に解説して參りますが、短めのパラグラフについてはまとめて解説することがあります。
以下の文章は、アメリカの小説家 John Irving が高校時代を振り返りながら、彼に大きな影響を与えた人物について述べたエッセイである。読んで設問に答えなさい。なお、原文を一部改めたところがある。
There was one place at *Exeter where I was never ① ; I never lost my temper in the wrestling room ―― possibly because I wasn’t ② to be there. It is ③ that I felt so comfortable with wrestling. My athletic skills had never been significant. I had loathed Little League baseball. (By association, I hate all sports with balls.) I more mildly disliked skiing and skating. (I have a limited tolerance for cold weather.) I did have an inexplicable taste for physical contact, for the *adrenal stimulation of bumping into people, but I was too small ④ football; also, there was a ball ⑤ .
[A] When you love something, you have the capacity to bore everyone about why ―― it doesn’t matter why. Wrestling, like boxing, is a weight-class sport; you get to bump into people your own size. You can bump into them very hard, but where you land is reasonably soft. And there are civilized aspects to the sport’s combativeness: I’ve always admired the rule that holds you responsible, if you lift your opponent off the mat, for your opponent’s “safe return.” But the best answer to why I love wrestling is that it was the very first thing I was any good at. And what limited success I had in the sport I owe completely to my first coach, Ted Seabrooke.
Coach Seabrooke had been a Big 10 Champion and a two-time All-America at Illinois; he was way overqualified for the job of coaching wrestling at Exeter ―― his teams dominated New England prep-school and high-school wrestling for years.
Not only did Ted Seabrooke teach me how to wrestle; more important, he *forewarned me that I would never be better than “halfway decent” as a wrestler ―― because of my limitations as an athlete. He also impressed upon me how I could compensate for my shortcomings: I had to be especially dedicated ―― a thorough student of the sport ―― if I wished to overcome my lack of any observable ability. “Talent is overrated,” Ted told me. That you’re not very talented needn’t be the end of it.”
A high school wrestling match is six minutes long, divided into three two-minute *periods ―― with no rest between the periods. In the first period, both wrestlers start on their feet, a neutral position with neither wrestler having an advantage. In the second period, in those days, one wrestler had the choice of taking the top or the bottom position; in the third period, the choice of positions was reversed. (Nowadays, the options of choice have been expanded to include the neutral position, and the wrestler given the choice in the second period may *defer his choice until the third.)
(ア)What Coach Seabrooke taught me was that I should keep the score close through two periods ―― close enough so that one *takedown in the third period could win the match. And I needed to avoid “mix-ups” ―― *free-for-all situations that were not in either wrestler’s control. (The outcome of such a scramble favors the better athlete.) Controlling the pace of the match ―― a combination of technique, correct position, and physical conditioning ―― was my objective. I know it sounds boring ――I was a boring wrestler. The pace that worked for me was slow. I liked a low-scoring match.
I rarely won by a *fall; in five years of wrestling at Exeter, I probably *pinned no more than a half-dozen opponents. I was almost never pinned ―― only twice, in fact.
[B] I won 5-2 when I dominated an opponent; I won 2-1 or 3-2 when I was lucky, and lost 3-2 or 4-3 when I was less lucky. If I got the first takedown, I could usually win; if I lost the first takedown, I was hard-pressed to recover ―― I was not a *come-from-behind man. I was, as Coach Seabrooke said, “halfway decent” as a counter-wrestler, too. But if my opponent was a superior athlete, I couldn’t afford to rely on my counter-moves to his first shots; my counters weren’t quick enough ―― my reflexes weren’t quick enough. Against a superior athlete, I would take the first shot; against a superior wrestler, I would try to counter his first move. “Or vice versa, if it’s not working,” Coach Seabrooke used to say. He had a sense of humor. “Where the head goes, the body must follow ―― usually,” Ted would add. And: “An underdog is in a position to take a healthy bite.”
This was a concept of myself that I’d been lacking. I was an underdog; therefore, I had to control the pace ―― of everything. This was more than I learned in *English 4W, but the concept was applicable to my *Creative Writing ―― and to all my schoolwork, too. If my classmates could read our history assignment in an hour, I allowed myself two or three. If I couldn’t learn to spell, I would keep a list of my most frequently misspelled words ―― and I kept the list with me; I had it handy even for unannounced quizzes. Most of all, I rewrote everything: first drafts were like the first time you tried a new takedown ―― you needed to drill it, over and over again, before you even dreamed of trying it in a match. I began to take my lack of talent seriously.
(adapted from Coach, edited by Andrew Blauner, 2011)
（注）
*Exeter： 米国ニューハンプシャー州にある有名な私立高校 Phillips Exeter Academy の略称
*adrenal： アドレナリンの *forewarn： 前もって警告する
*period(s) ： （試合の前半、後半などの）一区切り（日本語でも「ピリオド」と訳す。）
*defer： （実行・行動・考慮などを）延期する、据え置く、遅らせる
*takedown： レスリングで立っている相手をマットに倒す一連の技（ここでは、そのまま「テイクダウン」と訳して良い。）
*free-for-all situations： 様々な技を次々と繰り出して闘い合う状況
*fall： レスリングで相手の両肩をマットに押さえつけること
*pin： レスリングで「相手をフォールする」の意
*come-from-behind： 逆転の、逆転が得意な
*English 4W： 大学での文学関連の授業名（主に文学作品の読解や批評的分析を学ぶ授業である。）
*Creative Writing： 大学での文学関連の授業名（詩や小説などの創作を行う授業。のちに小説家となった筆者のように、作家志望の学生が受講することが多い。）
【設問】
1. 下線部①～⑤にもっともよくあてはまる語句を、選択肢(a)～(c)からそれぞれ一つ選びなさい。
① (a) angry (b) anger (c) angrily
② (a) embarrassed (b) embarrassment (c) embarrassing
③ (a) surprised (b) surprising (c) surprise
④ (a) playing (b) played (c) to play
⑤ (a) involve (b) involved (c) involving
2. 段落[A]には、筆者がレスリング競技を好む理由が書かれている。ここで理由として書かれているものを選択肢(a)～(h)から三つ選びなさい。
(a) 肉体を鍛えることができるから。
(b) 自分にとって初めて特技といえるものだったから。
(c) 攻撃中も相手の安全に配慮する、というルールが洗練されていると思うから。
(d) 反射神経が磨かれるから。
(e) 自分と同じくらいの大きさの相手と対戦すれば良いから。
(f) 自分よりも身体の大きな相手と対戦する楽しみがあるから。
(g) ほかの苦手なスポーツも得意になったから。
(h) 集中力を養うことができるから。
3. 下線部(ア)を日本語に訳しなさい。
4. コーチが筆者のレスラーとしての特徴を表すために用いた比喩表現で、著者の長所を引き出すことになった言葉を、段落[B]から１単語で抜き出しなさい。
5. 筆者はコーチからレスリングを通して何を学び、それを小説家になるためにどのように活かしたか。文章中の具体例に言及しながら記述しなさい。
