The jocks vs the not-so-jocks

We had PE in all the schools I attended. I enjoyed it, despite not being the competetive type.

When I was in the 2nd grade, we had a few weeks of squaredancing as PE.

SQUAREDANCING?

Yeah.

It was fun because it mixed the girls in with us boys, and The Rest Is History for Peegoo 

In high school: rugby in the winter and mostly cross-country running in the summer, unless you could persuade a teacher you might be good at cricket. The outdoor stuff was for an afternoon each week. All year round we also had a weekly morning in the gym. PE seemed to attract particularly sadistic teachers. Until age 13, we had an additional bus trip every week to a local swimming pool. My favourite memory of that was there was a food stand outside where we bought hot meat pies for the bus home. I was definitely not a jock: small for my age and very short sighted, wearing glasses from age 7. I grew suddenly from 16 and got my first contact lenses.Only then could I see the rugby ball, and the other guys coming to flatten me.

I wasn’t very athletic as a kid and I found PE awkward. OTOH I grew up on a farm. So no shortage of exercise.

There was still a PE requirement at the university when I started. I think it was 4 semesters, but only recall 2 PE classes. My buddy Shack and I were among the long hairs in a volleyball class, and relegated to a team with others who were rejected by the jock wannabes; so it was amusing that we were the class champions at the end of the semester.

I think that was taught in PE.

In grade school, our PE instructor, in local parlance known as a 'gym teacher', was 'buckets' Kowalski. Most of the time, he threw a few balls onto the basketball court and had us play dodgeball. However, once in a while we got to play floor hockey, which I enjoyed much more than dodgeball. PE ended for me after my freshman year in High School. Our last PE class included instruction in tumbling. I enjoyed that quite a bit. My memory of the era is that it was molded by President Kennedy's Council on Physical Fitness. I can still picture the Kennedys tossing the football around in Hyanis Port.

P.E. was required in my schools, 1-12 (this was during the early to mid 1960s). I grew up in a rural area so didn't get into team sports too much as there weren't enough kids living nearby to form two teams to play much of anything. We had a ping pong table so I got pretty good at that. Also bicycled a lot to get around until I got my first car. But most of the athletic stuff I did centered around the Pacific Ocean, which was about 1/4 mile from our house: swimming, surfing, skimboarding, body surfing, skateboarding, beach volleyball. So I was mostly doing individual stuff, competing against my "previous best" rather than against some other kid(s).

The few, formal surfing "contests" that were held back in those days were just an excuse to party. Surfing didn't really get seriously organized as a competitive sport with big cash prizes and sponsorships and all til the late 1970s: prior to that, it was mostly about a trophy and bragging rights. A few guys got a free board from a given surfboard maker for surfing on their "competition team" but you certainly couldn't make a living doing it.

Heck, you could barely even make a living building surfboards: it wasn't until they hit on the gimmick of selling it as a "life-style" that surf shops started making decent bank. Walk into any surf shop today and see how much footprint is taken up by surfboards and how much is devoted to T-shirts, board shorts, sweatshirts, wetsuits, bathing suits, hats, designer sunglasses, flip-flops and so on. Usually the boards, themselves, aren't even made on-site. When I started, there'd be a tiny "showroom" stocked with boards and a counter in front and maybe the latest issue of "Surfer" magazine, some tatami mats on the floor and that was it: they didn't even sell wetsuits. The place usually reeked of polyester resin because the boards were being shaped and glassed in the back room.

Our school P.E. coaches from junior high on were hardasses, mostly ex-military. I guess they felt that since our P.E. wasn't as tough as boot camp, we were getting off too easy. They certainly made sure we were never shorted on verbal abuse and humiliation. If you were a surfer but didn't also go out for swimming and water polo, you were pretty much written off as a bum. Most of the P.E. coaches also coached the school teams in one or more sport, so they must've thought of us "P.E." guys as a bunch of culls and losers.

In junior high, misdeeds during the period were punished with "running laps" or paddle tennis racquet "swats" on the ass "in the office" after class (from the tennis coach, who had quite a swing). "Misdeeds" ranged from a filthy gym suit or sneakers (all that had to be laundered once a week), showing up on the field in street shoes, talking back to coach, getting in a fight, hair too long at inspection, shirt not tucked into shorts, black socks instead of sweat socks, boxer shorts instead of jockstrap and so on. By high school, they just said "go to the Dean's office" if you pissed them off: that could result in anything from "a stern talk" to suspension, depending on the offense.

A lot of after school fist fights were just continuations of disputes that had started during P.E..

Our own (mine and the wife's) kids played competitive softball both on school teams and in summer leagues (during the late 1990s-early 2000s). I coached and assistant coached on and off. I think they benefited greatly from the discipline and work ethic instilled thereby.

The wife, grew up in New York, says her P.E. consisted of folk dancing and volleyball.

Dodgeball, perhaps the ultimate Lord of the Flies game?

PE was always some large group activity in elementary school, usually kickball, there was one unit of doing calisthenic type exercises, and about her where oui ran around twirling a huge parachute.

Middle school was more organized, rotating through volleyball, basketball, paddleball, and in the spring, softball.

High school depended on your teacher. Nobody was required to participate. You could walk the track, or play football when the weather was nice. Basketball and volleyball indoors if it wasn’t. If you didn’t feel like playing you could sit in the bleachers, if you had the right teacher. All they cared about wa sthat you changed to your gym uniform.

My daughter’s performing arts curriculum eliminates traditional team sport gym in favor of dance class, which she is quite happy about.

I never really got interested in organized sports as I started playing in bands when I was in 8th grade and felt no connection to my school or the whole “hero-worship” thing that existed with the jocks. By my senior year I was a 17 year old partying quite regularly with 20/30 year old friends and felt no need to be a hero-worshipped jock when I had young adult sweeties hitting on me at gigs.

early elementary school was horrible- my folks weren't very cash fluid, and I was warned to take off my glasses before P.E., because we couldn't afford replacements. Ever try to catch a fly ball with 200/20 vision? Dodgeball became a multi-sensory event. First you hear the whoosh of the approaching ball, then you see stars as you feel the pain of the ball ricocheting off your forehead.

gradually I took control and wore my glasses. I found out I was decent, not great at most sports. Even caught four touchdown passes in a game. I guess the guys on the other team weren't wearing their glasses.

I was pretty good. Very fast. Played football, basketball, and track every year.

But I didn't have the right attitude. Didn't much care if we won or lost. Just a game. Drove my coaches crazy.

Gave it all up my senior year, didn't go out for anything.

At my school, there was a guy who climbed to the top and decided to make his way from one section of beam to another. Except he got tired and fell.  He survived and was sent to the hospital.  I don't think it hurt him too badly.  I wasn't in that class when it happened.  I think it freaked everybody out.  He was rather smallish for his age anyway.

As a side note, at the end of the next year, he showed up at church having just married one of the teachers, the lady who taught the school chorus.  It wasn't our church, so I wasn't there, but I understand a lot of jaws hit the floor. AFAIK they're still married, so good for them! (I have googled them and hope this isn't considered stalking.)  

In those sparsely-populated communities such as the one I grew up in, a certain amount of wackiness is the be expected, since there's not all that much to conform to. 

I played little league as a kid and had a blast. In 1967 I was 12 and played on the all-star team for our little town of Mims, Fl. population in the low hundreds. We went on to win the East Florida title and only lost to Tampa for the state title. Not bad for such a small town. Then I got into music and my interest went there. In high school I had to take a PE class for graduation credits, so me and another long haired ner do well enrolled in a hand ball class. Every jock athlete in school happened to be in that class. I paired off with the hippy dude, and at the end of the six weeks me and my buddy cleaned the floor, first place . We had a big smile on our face that day. The coach not so much seeing as how we beat all his top players. Cue the Rocky music (: