Any Phys. Ed. horror stories to tell?

[DerekG]

I am now a senior in college, but once and a while, I will recall a memory revolving around a traumatic Gym session from public school. Bear in mind, I'm not trying to equate twelve years of Physical Education class to a tour in Vietnam, but it was a collection of experiences I still feel I could've done without. I was always the tallest boy in my class, but I was (and remain) terribly uncoordinated. My interests were in comic books, video games, and adventure novels. Suffice to say, there was a great deal of mockery to endure. I don't dwell on it now, but again, I'll conjure up a particular occurence once and a while. Here's one:

In Junior High, our class had the choice of table tennis or basketball. My selection would have been the former, only I was absent that day--so I was forced to play basketball the next day. I was thrown into the mix of 5 on 5 basketball without comprehending how the game was actually played. After I missed the last ball thrown to me, the entire team started screaming at me. I hung my head in shame until class was over; in the locker room, nearly everyone taunted me until I broke down in tears and ran out of school.

So, would anyone else care to share a horror story?

[JohnKleeb]

1. I got hit in the nose with a basketball

3 times in 2 years not really a horror story but odd.

[CarlBallard]

3. Yikes

Hopefully not by the same person.

[JohnKleeb]

8. I am not sure

It happened twice as a freshman then once as a sophomore. Well I cant get hit in the nose :) now because I am out of gym but if I do to what I may in fact to this winter and do some work for the basketball team I might.

[renegade000]

16. haha i got hit as well

on the nose. didn't break it, but i bled profusely. my friends were really nervous about the amount of blood coming out. when i went to the nurse she said i looked like i was in a war, heh (had blood layering on my face below my nostrils and all over my shirt).

[Iris]

21. omg - that was my WORST fear in high school!

I have a long, straight, classially roman nose and if it had been altered in any way, I'm sure I would have crawled under a rock and died!

[gyopsy]

2. I got a one

I was the fat kid in the class and in middle school they made us do the annual "Mile Run" which was this huge event that everyone was supposed to take part in.

Naturally, I lost everyone about 50 feet from the starting line. I huffed and puffed about 100 yards further down before giving up and walking the rest of the way.

When I finally made it to the finish line, I discovered my entire P.E. class had gone inside already. When the coach saw me he asked, "What, are you still here?" and the whole class got a big laugh out of that.

Well, ten years later I'm not fat anymore but I still detest pure running down a track, especially for competition.

[patdem]

4. Yes I was amoung the first to participate in the President's

Physical Fitness brew ha ha...

Anyway...we all had to run track (for some reason?) and each student took their turn. Mine came and I ran like the wind (my wind anyway) and when I got to the finish line I said to the teacher...gee that streach was longer than it appeared... and her retort...'well it took you long enough to get here' I was humiliated! I thought I had run a good race...she embarassed me and made me feel like a failure!

I was NEVER good at physical fitness games ever again...why try when only insults are your reward?

[gyopsy]

5. That's awful

You know, I remember my school gym teachers being worse than the other kids big time.

[madrchsod]

11. i remember when that started

thank god my gym teachers were as lazy as the guys in my gym class. now my daughter actually has to pass gym to graduate from high school! so this year she`s taking to gyms during the day.

[Cush]

12. Ugh that fitness crap

I remember those evil, evil things.

[Nikia]

6. People took gym class way too seriously

We mostly played sports that people at my school were good at like basketball and volleyball. People would yell at me if I missed a basket or didn't hit the ball over the net in volleyball the few times I saw action at the ball so I dreaded the sports. Then I started running track my freshman year and became one of the best runners in our area within a couple of months. Then I had confidence in my athleticism and people didn't assume that I'd be bad at sports anymore. My sophomore year, I started playing basketball and volleyball pretty well. Some of the varisty basketball players suggested that perhaps I should even go out for the team (I didn't). I won the sophomore physical education award at school award's ceremony (They gave awards out for the best student in every class). It is amazing what a change of attitude can mean.

[eyesroll]

7. I remember my gym teacher said we all had to test above the 60th

percentile on the Presidential Physical Fitness Test in order to "pass."

When I tried to ask her how 100% of the people in a given class can test higher than 60% of the general population on a test that, not only could you not study for, but your actual level of fitness could only count for so much. What she was asking for was a statistical impossibility, and she was going to use it for our grade.

Until the PE director told her she couldn't (apparently, the PPFT isn't supposed to be used for a grade, period). She didn't care for me after that, because I guess I was better at math than PE.

[jmm]

9. I wouldn't call this a horror story but

once in high school while I had my arms in the air and was about to rebound the ball a girl on the other team shoved me from behind which kind of straightened my right hand. The ball fell on it weird so I broke a couple of vains. It didn't really hurt but for a few days I couldn't write or type and you could see a couple of vains running down my forearm. The girl who did it insisted it was an accident but I'm not so sure.

[madrchsod]

10. our gym class played murder ball

-which i found out has been outlawed- during the winter. the class had everyone from freshmann to seniors so during one game ,me being a 100 pd. freshman challenged the senior linebacker for the ball in the middle of the gym...i lost. knocked me out for a minute,he picked me up,asked if i was ok, then we continued the game.

[LosinIt]

13. Not traumatic to me, but what I witnessed

We had been scheduled to go outside for gym class, but it was pouring. So they opened up the divider and both the boys' and girls' classes played longbase. That was kickball with only one base at the far end of the gym. One kid was on base and another kid kicked a ball high that got bounced around in the rafters at the top of the gym. They were both running full tilt and watching the ball and, you guessed it, ran smack into each other. Eddie, who happened to be the vice-principal's son, got his head split open across both eyebrows, blood everywhere. We ran to get the nurse and grabbed his dad. They took them both by ambulance out to the hospital, it was pretty scarey for all of us. They were both fine, but I bet Ed still has the scar.

[TheBigGuy]

14. oddly enough, no...

....this is strange as im gay and in no way into sports or stuff like that...but my brief experience with PE wasnt too bad.

I only had 3 years of it as where I went to grade school they didnt have a real gym, and they only had it in Jr High and Freshman yr in high school (where we alternated w. something called "health class").

When I was in PE we played alot of basketball.....and I mean ALOT of basketball....and since im tall (around 6'6" or 6'7") I was picked up for the teams when they chose up as I got better at it. I also had an advantage as i atteneded some basketball clinics on Saturday in the elementary school I went to prior to going to Jr High.

So I did get to know the sport of basketball a bit.

We also did alot of track and cross-counry stuff, and the last thing we did, when I was a freshman, was learn how to play soccer. That was actually pretty cool as we all where starting out more or less even...no one had all this little league experience to fall back on.

[Astarho]

15. One time the Marines taught a class

The Phys ed teachers thought it was great, most of us disagreed.

I always hated Phys ed since I was not athletic. I was often taunted and insulted because of it. And then they wondered why I was so anti-social.

[MIScott87]

17. In swimming class, I nearly drowned.

I never learned how to swim until last year. On the first day of swimming class, our teacher tested everybody's swimming skills.

I started swimming, but then I nearly drowned. I don't recall much of what happened, but someone saved me from actually drowning. That was the closest I have ever come to dying, I think. It was an experience I never want to relive again.

[BiggJawn]

18. Phys Ed turned me off to fitness for almost 30 years.

I HATED P.E. so much that for years I refused to equate physical activity with FUN unless it included trying to wear out somebody's genitals.

And I got fat and diabetic when the sex dried up midway through my second marriage....

Then I discovered the Bicycle, and now i'm trying to fix 30 year's worth of corruption.

Thanks a BUTTLOAD, Coach, you buzz-cut small-penised Asshole!

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

19. Yes

I was in gym last year and was guarding one of my "enemies" (girl who hates me for no reason, girl I don't like but don't talk to anymore) and she made a move around me and I was jokingly saying "ooo i'll get you next time" and then she told all her friends I said I was going to literally kill her. Yeah that turned out interesting. I took it to the assistant principal before it got too out of hand though.

[VOX]

20. My left knee was permanently damaged in high-school cross country...

Although a teenage body is very flexible and can take a certain amount of punishment, we had poor training surfaces, overtraining, lousy shoes, inadequate knowledge of sports medicine, etc. One day I fell like a bucket of bolts on hardpan dirt and ripped my knee to shreds. After a few stitches, I was told to keep running the rest of the week. Kids aren't overly wise at age 14 and tend to trust their coaches. From then on, it was corrective p.e. for the rest of high school, and no college sports, other that beer and softball. :)

Not a day goes by now that my knee doesn't "speak" to me. I'm probably not alone on this type of scenario -- by a long shot.

On edit: fix typos

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. I think that high school phy. ed. teachers

must have to take a course in "Sadism" before being certified.

My family isn't into sports at all, and my mother and grandmother seemed to think that sweating was bad for you, so we were never encouraged to do anything athletic.

This was not true in every family, so of course, 90% of the kids in any gym class were better than me.

I therefore grew up thinking that being physically fit was something you were born with. There were naturally fit people and naturally unfit people, and nothing could ever change that.

That's why the attitude of my gym teachers seemed especially crude. Not only did they use that humiliating system of having the team captains take turns choosing players, so that I was always one of the last to be chosen, but they also seemed to be punishing us for being unfit.

For example, if we were among the last ten to finish running around the track, we had to run around again. (The school is lucky that no one had asthma or a heart condition.)

But it could have been worse. One of my brothers' gym teachers used to "punish" the kids who were slow at running the track by making them duck walk around, so they not only had to exert themselves when exhausted but also look stupid while doing it.

I hated gym class, and one of the happiest days of my young life was when I entered eleventh grade, where gym was no longer required.

My college had a three-term gym requirement, and upon entering, I immediately took a quarter of badminton (boring, but tolerable), and a quarter of swimming (my first valuable phy. ed. class).

I then quietly stopped taking gym, but the registrar's office caught up with me and forced me to take the third quarter as a senior.

The only women's class that fit into my schedule was called Conditioning. The teacher put us through a series of tests and used the results not to shame us but to design an individual exercise program for each of us. The routines became a bit harder each week.

By the end of the quarter, I, who had gotten winded after running around the gym once during the tests, was easily running around the gym ten times.

So at age 21, I learned for the first time in my life that it is possible to improve one's physical condition. This experience made me both appreciative of this college phy. ed. teacher and angrier at my high school teachers.