I expected to be picked early for the ones at which I was good and late for the ones at which I was poor. That’s how picking sides works. Getting butthurt over it would have been just plain dumb.
Yep, my one weird talent was kickball. We had a crap gym, and I soon learned to kick the ball in a way that it either wedged under the heating units, in back of the basket, or (my favorite) out the door. Everything else? Dead last.
I was always picked last.
I actually can’t remember how I felt. But I don’t remember being sad about it or disappointed. I never wanted to play. Being picked last meant that the game would be over by the time it was your turn at bat. That was fine by me.
Still, it wouldn’t have hurt anyone to have the teams created a different way.
My youngest brother is seven years younger than me. By the time he was at the same phase of team sports, many people had adopted the rule that you only picked the first half of your players. The players in the bottom half then picked the team they wanted to be on (provided that the teams had to wind up with equal players).
So it might still suck to be in the bottom half, but nobody was ever last.
Count me in as being picked last in the younger grades. Around third or fourth grade, everybody knew I sucked at sports so I was assigned to do things like keeping score. My issue wasn’t actually that I was bad, it was that nobody had taught me basic skills like catching a ball or hitting it with a bat. I was amazed that in first grade, all my peers knew how to play softball but I didn’t. In hindsight I guess their parents taught them, but mine didn’t. Once it was identified that I could neither hit nor catch, they would stick me in the outfield. So then I’d be bored stiff, start picking daisies instead of paying attention and never even see the few balls that came my direction which cemented my reputation as being bad at sports. I resented a little that nobody taught me how to play but I was expected to just know.
I don’t really remember, but one event stands out to this day for me. There should have been an option in the poll for “didn’t get picked at all”. That happened to me when I was maybe 6 or 7 and I remember it clearly. Neighborhood kids putting together a stick-ball game - everyone got picked and I was the last one standing. Since the sides were even, the big kid told me to get lost. I went home in tears.
I think that day directed me toward activities that do not require a team. As an adult I prefer individual sports (both participating and observing).
I was the dumbest kid ever. I was always picked dead last. I had zero interest in sports, and I sucked donkey balls at every one of them.
So, you’d think that there would be two possible ways for me to approach this situation: Either live with it and not care, since it made sense, or actually do something to get better, and perhaps improve my sorry station in the picking order.
Neither ever occurred to me. I was picked last, hated it, sulked, cried, never did anything about it. Rinse, repeat. That’s my childhood.
A few years ago, at about age 30, a light bulb went off over my head. “Hey, wait. It’s mostly my own fault that I was and still is shit at everything athletic. I never ran when I could walk, and never sat when I could lie down. I was fat and lazy, and hated sports. It makes sense that I was picked last.”
And then:
“I wonder what would happen if I tried to get in better shape. Heck, I’ll do it now.”
Team sports isn’t my thing, but I did take up running and joined a gym. I got pretty obsessive about it for a while. It was awesome! I was taking revenge on my childhood. Look at the shape I’m in now, you little punks! I bet you wouldn’t pick me last anymore.
Recently I’ve been letting it slide, and I’m mostly back to fat and lazy again. But for a brief, shining moment, at the dawn of middle age, I got a glimpse into what it might feel like to not be the worst kid in gym class.
Small and skinny kid. I could run fast though.
Always picked last / near-last at:
Basketball
Baseball
Football
Soccer
Volleyball
Kickball
Field Hockey
Handball
Picked in the middle at:
Dodgeball (small and hard to hit)
Relay races
I think that’s probably why I didn’t take getting picked in sports last too hard. I was always the kid everyone wanted on their team when the class played Jeopardy or other activities where smarts are required. I was terrible in PE, but I was good in academics.
I feel sorry for kids that don’t know what it is like to be good at anything. For kids like that, then it really isn’t “plain dumb” for them to feel bad. It’s competely understandable.
I was always chosen second to last (I was a marginally better player than one other girl) except for one time when the team captain felt sorry for me and picked me first. I’ve never played a better game of kickball and we won!
In some ways, that game changed my life so much for the better.
As a substitute gym teacher, I’d have the kids count off one, two, one, two, and divide them up that way. Some kids were crying because they were so angry they couldn’t choose sides. Some kids were crying because they hadn’t been chosen last for once. I told everybody to guess whether I’d been chosen first or last as a kid. It was a lot of fun, watching the lightbulbs go off over their heads.
I was picked late for just about all sports. Not very quick, deft, or skilled; similar to others upthread. This played into my self image as “brainy, bad at sports”. I accepted it, but still didn’t like it, and I was always relieved when I wasn’t picked dead last (which really sucks, as many of us know).
Then in sixth grade my best friend coerced me into trying out for the church league tackle football team. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was decently big for my grade. I surprised myself by playing better than expected, and getting to play starter (sometimes both offense AND defense). I didn’t realize at the time, but this was helped by being 6th grader on a 5th-6th grade team; also if losing EVERY game means we sucked, then I guess our squad sucked, which must have helped me get play time, too. But I didn’t really register this at the time, so instead, I gained self-confidence and self-esteem! This totally reconfigured my attitude and approach to sports ever after. I didn’t become a jock, but now I felt I could contend.
As I read this to myself, I see that I bought into the unhealthy dynamic, both when it punished me and when it benefited me (of course there were other kids getting less play time than I did). But it was still life changing for me, allowing me to move on from that phase of life not clouded by perpetual defeat.
And boy, I wish every disregarded kid could have an experience like that!
In my class, there was one “fat kid.” Not me. I was worse than average in fitness, but this kid was chubby.
In P.E. classes, I hung back with him, and took turns, so he wasn’t ALWAYS last. I considered this to be morally compassionate. He also liked the company.
Without him, I probably would always have been last, so, in a sad way, he was as good for me as I was good for him.
I grew up among squatters in the swamps and went to the one room school of legend and lore through the 6th grade. Sept 8th 1948, for the seventh grade they sent a bus down to the end of the surfaced road to pick up me and another kid named Charles whom no one had ever seen before and hauled us off to middle school.
First PE, twin brothers were designated captains of two baseball teams. They alternately picked names until no one was left except me and Charles and then they all dashed off to the field to play leaving us standing there.
On the way out I had seen an encyclopedia so I went back inside to read it. Charles was never seen again. I never went to PE again.
I was often picked last, but heck, I knew I was bad at sports anyway. And I was playing with friends who I enjoyed spending time with, even if sports weren’t my preferred way of spending time, so I still had fun while sucking.
I grew up in the Deep South where all sports (at least the ones we cared about) were really competitive to put it mildy. I had a very late birthday in school year terms so most of my classmates were at least many months older than me and that was a huge deal when you are that young. There were lots of others that were well over a year older than me because their parents held them back from kindergarten so that they would have an advantage in little kids sports. It is pathetic when I think about it now but it didn’t feel that way at the time. I was very skinny and active but not particularly coordinated back then plus I didn’t have a father that was around to practice anything with me. That translated into being picked last or near last for most everything until late high school.
It didn’t help matters that I hit puberty late and were literally bench pressing several hundred pounds when I could barely lift the bar in gym class. It didn’t really occur to me that a big part of that was that some of them had flunked a grade or three by that point and I was literally trying to compare myself, a barely pubescent male, with people that were already biological adults for all intents and purposes. It still pissed me off and made me feel inadequate.
The only sports that I was good at were ones that didn’t count. I was a naturally good gymnast when I was young and was the only male that made it to the (all girls besides me) exhibition team but you can probably see why that wasn’t widely admired. I could also swim extremely well but our schools were so small that we didn’t have anything like a swim team.
I did ‘play’ Little League baseball for two years in first and second grade. I used the quotes because I didn’t really play it at all and couldn’t stand the sport itself. However, I figured out early that young Little League pitchers could not consistently throw 3 strikes before 4 balls. While everyone else was swinging as hard as they could to make the big hit, my (very successful) strategy was to just stand there in a stance that presented the smallest target possible, never swing and take the walk the great majority of the time. My teammates and even some parents wanted me pulled for it until a smart coach pointed out to them that I was consistently among the top scorers on the team and usually the top one because I found my own winning strategy.
I eventually hit puberty like everyone else and became taller and bigger than most of them by the end of high school and was treated with respect by then. We graduated and the former local sports stars went onto jobs in construction, the oilfield or whatever assignment they got in prison while I went to college. I can’t say that being picked last for team sports was a good thing but it doesn’t bother me now because I have the experience to look back and put everything in its proper perspective.
I was, always, in P. E. classes. That was fine with me. I didn’t want to play sports with any of them, any more than they wanted to play sports with me.
One day, in 11th grade I think, after running the assigned lap around the field, I ducked behind the handball courts, and noticed a couple of guys in the class playing handball there. (There were courts on the back side too.) I got into playing handball with them, and that’s what the three of us did for the rest of the semester.
The P. E. teacher didn’t give a shit. He told me once that it was fine with him, as long as we kept busy at some P. E. activity.
I spoke for nobody but myself.
For most sports; yes. And it never really bothered me at all as long as the stronger players were picked over me. I always figured the point of playing was winning.
Generally not only would I not be chosen at all, the team captains would argue over who had to have me on their team.
I actually liked sports, but never had the chance to play. Small for my age and a year or two younger than my classmates, I’d usually be knocked out of the way if the ball got near me.
On the plus side, it was extra-humiliating for all the kids I beat at tennis and ping-pong.
Always last’ish. Felt horrible, how could I get better if I was always stuck waaay back in right field?? Very socially awkward and didn’t understand why nobody wanted to be friendly. As I’ve gotten older I realize that I have strengths and weaknesses just like everybody else, but back in the day I was totally clueless and yes, I felt very out of place and uncomfortable in my own life.