My junior high in Kansas, mid 1970s: For guys, the gym teacher stood at the end of a long line of showers and everyone was expected to shower thoroughly. The last shower was on cold. After showering, everyone had to stand under the cold shower and turn around slowly, with the gym teacher standing right there watching. The gym teacher was eventually fired for chasing a student through the school and beating him up because the student called him by his first name.
Lots really bad happened in that class. In hindsight, I’ve got no doubt the gym teacher was a sadist and perv. He ruined athletics for many, many guys.
Some people here have said they didn’t get very sweaty in PE class, but some of my teachers did run us hard. In response to a question over in the “A Couple of Questions for Straight Guys” thread about the necessity for showering after gym class, I wrote:
I signed up for one special type of PE class one semester in high school called Noncompetitive Tennis, so I could get out of regular PE class. It was tennis for people who just wanted to bop the ball around and not get serious about playing on the school team. The coach didn’t take it seriously at all; he used the time to squirrel himself away in his office and take care of paperwork. There were only four of us taking the course, so what we did was divide up into teams and, instead of play tennis like we were supposed to, have raging tennis-ball wars. We’d stalk each other everywhere and smack the balls hard with the rackets. Similar to modern-day paintball wars. One guy in particular was bad news to be on the other team, because he could really smack you. We got pretty sweaty running around like that.