When I was a freshman in high school my first class of the first semester was physical education (P.E.) at 7:45 a.m.
Somehow, I drew the same short straw my sophomore year. How I envied the kids who enjoyed P.E. at roughly 1:00 p.m., in the daylight, with actual waves of radiant heat emanating from the sun – they had it so good.
I recall suffering through various freezing activities (even the buildings’ interiors were cold, I think they used a gigantic Freddy Krueger-esqe, fire-driven central boiler built in 1949 to heat the campus, it took all day to gain any efficacy), including:
- Watching the football players excel at flag football, much to the satisfaction of our very tight sweatshort-wearing P.E. teachers, Mr. Reeves and Mr. Pica, who pulled double duty as the Head Football & Assistant Football Coaches, respectively.
- Watching the football players excel at weightlifting, including utilizing forms since deemed inadvisable by health and fitness professionals, like yarding down on the lat pull bar to the base of your neck (behind your head) with as much weight as possible to the point it lifted you off the ground. And using an actual “neck machine” to kind of torque your neck forward and backward, ostensibly to strengthen and/or tear your neck ligaments, apparently.
- Watching the football players excel at this horrible game called “knee rugby” where you run around on your knees on wrestling mats and try to throw a rugby ball into a floor hockey net “goal” while getting absolutely mauled by football players. And wrestlers.
To survive knee rugby, my friends and I developed a plan where we avoided the “scrum” (a.k.a. big pile of sweaty, hairy bodies piled on top of each other with hands awkwardly probing for/ripping at the “prize” rugby ball thing) by kind of half-heartedly milling around its perimeter and grunting/growling loudly caveman-style to fake both our enthusiasm and participation.
The goal was to signal to the coaches that we were, yes indeed, violence-prone American boys eager to kill each other simply for possession of the inflated, inanimate elliptical object and thus earn ourselves a proper place within the tribe (and receive some form of beneficial grade). And possibly allow them to rest assured that our great nation would survive any attack by the Soviet Union, nuclear or otherwise, thanks to the strength and fortitude and bloodlust of its Young Men. I mean, The Cold War was still going on and stuff, so it was likely on their minds.
Of course, P.E. wasn’t just about football players. Sometimes we played volleyball, where the basketball players excelled.
Interestingly enough, we never actually played basketball. I wonder if somebody died and had to sweep the incident under the rug, under an agreement with the School Board to never speak of it or play of it again?
One of the most bizarre activities involved training for that stupid President’s Challenge, Health & Fitness Award promulgated by the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition (actual government agency thing). Lyndon B. Johnson introduced this crucible in 1966 to encourage all Americans to “make being active part of their everyday lives and be physically fit and stop being such fat burger eating slobs.”
(Talk about a thin veil, surely this was instituted to create a population stalwart enough to survive a Soviet attack – Johnson likely had a hotline to Mr. Reeves and Mr. Pica and all P.E. teachers across the nation so he could receive weekly readiness updates on young America’s ability to repel Evil Communist Invaders. I wonder if he also had a pair of tight sweatshorts he wore around the Oval Office.)
The “challenges” (one had to score in the 85th percentile in each to achieve the award) included curl-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, the sit-and-reach, the 30-foot shuttle run, and the one-mile endurance run.
Little Known Fact: If you made a contribution to the Democratic Party you only had to score in the 50th percentile.
Another Little Known Fact: If you could demonstrate proficiency in attacking a series of fortified communist bunkers by calling in artillery, then conducting a squad-level assault by laying down a base of fire, then flanking the position, you only had to score in the 10th percentile.
Despite being forced to practice these activities throughout the semester routinely, I didn’t score in the 85th percentile in any of these when it came to testing time. Well, at least not the push-ups and pull-ups. But due to a clerical error upon graduation, I received the little gold tassel thing that indicated I was an Official Award Recipient. I didn’t say anything.
I just read the program was discontinued on June 30, 2018, because the President’s administration at that time deemed the private sector was whipping young folks into shape just fine. I actually blame today’s young people themselves, what with their propensity for having good relationships with their parents, holding corporations accountable for creating a greater good for society and the planet, refusing to smoke, and other bewildering habits that promote health and wellness, both physically and mentally. They didn’t need help from the feds.
Another unique task we, particularly as freshmen, had to complete to get into the good graces of our very square-jawed, violence-loving instructors involved running the interior perimeter of the Names Gym, then “bear crawling” the same perimeter, then running again, so and so forth, then dying.
Bear crawling is basically crawling in a push-up position. I see it’s regained popularity amongst extremist groups, including BootCamp enthusiasts, ACE-certified personal trainers, the Taliban, and bears – particularly the aggressive packs of black bears continuing to encroach on our fragile urban spaces the woods keep sprawling over as we try to exist and build driveways for Amazon drivers to park in/future drones to land in so they can deliver our Very Important Items® that much faster.
Anyway, bear crawling is a nightmare (although it does explain bears’ impressive abs), and I still have post-traumatic stress over the whole thing. Occasionally the P.E. teaching assistants would encourage one’s effort by threatening to strike one as one’s bear crawling effort lagged (due to a combination of dehydration, exhaustion, and cardia arrhythmias) – coupled with occasional, actual strikes. Accompanied with hollow, synapse-free, mouth-only, hyena-type laughter from what can only be described as an actual, legitimate, hopeless doofus. Not that I’m bitter. Besides, it was the very late 80’s, so it was socially acceptable. HisnamewasPatTooeyandIhatehim…pant, pant.
So that was physical education in the late 80’s – early ’90s: Getting tackled, creating permanent deformities with free weights, running weird drills, and generally almost getting killed. Oh! I forgot about the post-class, open, and completely freezing showers. That was fun.
I don’t know much about what modern high-school kids do for physical education these days. I’m sure it’s fine. I will say my demographic likely faced much more adversity and developed more resilience than any modern teenager, with their kale salads, quinoa, and proper strength and conditioning techniques. I mean, do you really think these kids can repel an invading army?
