I wasn’t a big PE fan in school–my favorite thing to see on the gym chalkboard was DNSU (do not suit up).
My favorites were archery in 11th and 12th grade and warball – a dodgeball variant much beloved by our gym teachers, who – until stopped around 10th grade – used these smaller rubber balls a little bigger than softballs that hurt like hell.
We had one old-school gym teacher who sucked, but he retired after my 7th grade year. The other gym teachers we had always made sure those who were weaker or less athletic didn’t get bullied or picked on too much…made it much more fun.
I went to a very poor rural school and I was active but seemed to delay most of the other guys in a place that only recognized football, baseball, and basketball as legitimate sports. Some of them in my grade really were almost two years older than me because of my late birthday and the fact that their parents held them back for a year on purpose so that they would have an athletic advantage (or just because they flunked an early grade or two). That gave them a huge advantage and I didn’t appreciate the developmental effect that had at the time but I do now. I am bigger and more fit than most of them today but it sucked to be one of the last guys in middle-school to hit puberty. I had guys in my 7th grade class with full mustaches and beards that could bench press over 200 pounds (that is not an exaggeration at all).
My favorite PE activity was in 9th grade when I switched schools for a semester to a school literally twice the size of my entire hometown 30 miles away. I joined junior ROTC which wasn’t that great but I also made the rifle team associated with it which was. This country boy already knew how to shoot at an expert level so that was fun and I got to shoot guns…at school…for credit. I am not sure they still do that anywhere these days.
My least favorite was running timed laps around the outdoor track once a semester in junior high as a test. This was in the oppressive Louisiana heat and humidity at the end of the school year in May. We had to run a timed 1 1/2 miles and it was torture. It doesn’t seem that far now but plenty of people didn’t make it because they collapsed from heat exhaustion and had to do it again later. The PE coaches had to monitor everyone for heat related problems at every lap and pull them off if someone didn’t look or sound right.
Hated Volleyball. So much.
Loved Tennis. Tennis days were my favorite. Also liked Basketball.
I don’t remember what else we did, because the girls got to sit around in the corners and gossip. Every day.
Whereas I couldn’t even get my fingers to the box. Best I could do was like -2 inches.
I hated everything except archery, which I’m still shocked they let us do (mid 90’s). Though most of the time I could just play Horse with my friends, which wasn’t so bad.
wish I’d gone to school where you did, This was early 80’s in a school with over 3000 students and most classes had 35 t0 40 students in them. It was in the poor and rough part of town and they bussed kids around the city under the idea of “desegregation” but basically we got kids who had already been in and out of juvie, and most teachers (**especially gym teachers) **were hired more on the basis of could they act as security, :dubious:most were ex military, most had left the military dishonorably and weren’t much better than the punks. I was a big boobed blonde with no intention of putting out :mad:and who wore glasses who was brainy and used words with more than one syllable. Might as well have worn a target.
our school was underfunded and made money through the sports and band competitions, academics came last. when the basketball in the face thing happened I was so surrounded (it had been preplanned) teacher didn’t see anything, it was my brain damaged word against star bball player and 10 of his friends. the whole thing was blown off as I was concussed and confused so the majority witless-his friends- were whose testimony was accepted, especially since it was nearing play offs.:smack:
A year later the guy who did it got jumped in an alley and beat half to death, his arm, rib, collarbone and both kneecaps shattered. so much for his basketball career. there were six of us questioned about it, me and a couple of girls he’d date raped and some nerds he’d bullied badly. Like any of us could have physically done it, :dubious:though I do wonder if one or more of the group pooled money and talked one of the local sons of silence into doing it.Wasn’t me but if I’d known about I would handed over my piggy bank, I’ll be honest about that.
God, I hated P.E. Track, softball, soccer, volleyball, gymnastics, I sucked at all of them. Especially gymnastics. I have no business going anywhere near a vault or balance beam.
I did like when we did archery, I was actually pretty good at that. Tennis and badminton were OK too.
I still remember one day the girls decided to rebel against the gym teacher. The teacher loved soccer, so that’s what we girls did most of the time. We decided we were sick of playing soccer and we wanted to play flag football like the guys were doing. So we went over to where the boys were playing football, swiped some of their equipment, and organized our own football game. Teacher was all like “What are you doing?!” but then she realized we were still getting some exercise so she left us alone. That was a blast, probably the most fun I ever had in P.E. And we didn’t have to play soccer anymore after that. 
Pretty much this. It was an equalizer. You got to beam the bully and the annoying snot-nosed kid.
Little snot nosed kids can be pounded in the name of sports on the basketball court too. Set a hard pick and when he peels himself off the floor question loudly just when exactly he plans on hitting puberty and how much longer he plans to remain a hairless little chihuahua.
I second this. All of P.E. sucked. Volleyball was the probably the worst, as I had no ability whatsoever and the girls who did were complete bitches about it.
In high school I was able to get out of P.E. because I was in the marching band. It was a godsend.
Elementary school: Shark tag was the best. Most of the class had to try to run across the gym without getting tagged by one of the few sharks. If you got tagged you joined the sharks, but I think unlike them you had to stay in place.
Dodgeball was also fun. I guess kickball was the worst.
High school: Tennis was the best, since it was the one thing I was good at. I beat everyone else and then played against the teacher.
Volleyball was the worst, and I still don’t like it. I don’t even understand it. The concept of “setting” never clicked for me.
Flippin’ loved dodgeball, and may or may not still play in a league for it as an adult. Too bad the last time I got to play dodgeball in school was junior high. Aside from that, I liked PE in general because once the exercise part was over, you got to just dick around with your friends. I particularly liked kickball and volleyball, even though I wasn’t any good at volleyball. Was also a huge fan of strength-training type exercises like pushups because for some stranger reason, I was super strong as a kid, always more so than the rest of the girls and a good deal of the boys. Yeah, don’t know what happened to that. It is so not the case anymore. Everything else, like softball, basketball, etc, I tolerated.
*Hated *running though. Still do
PE achived one thing for me: a lasting dislike of team sports, gyms and fitness nuts. Any kind of excercise I get tends to be of the solo or small group variety - cycling, walking hikeing etc.
We played warball too, but with the regular-sized red rubber balls. Basically you’d split into 2 teams, one on each side of the gym. Everyone or nearly everyone had a ball, and when the game started everyone threw their ball at the other team. It was chaos and a lot of fun but you’d sometimes take some hard hits from multiple directions.
I don’t think that game stayed in the rotation very long, too many injuries with a gym full of guys running around, dodging, and slamming each other with red rubber balls.
My absolute least favorite was roller skating, because I was worse at it than anyone, and roller skating is a really embarrassing thing to be bad at. I also didn’t like basketball because it made me break my nails. And soccer because I had a bad habit of my foot not connecting with the ball. I didn’t like volleyball, but I forget why.
I liked gymnastics, running, softball, kickball, football, and floor hockey. Mostly because I was better at those sports.