I picked “never” in the poll but I can’t say with 100% certainty that I never was. Could have been picked last sometimes and just don’t remember it.
However, I didn’t suck at athletic activities, so I generally wasn’t picked last or even close to last due to ability. Usually probably middle of the pack. Closer to front if one of my friends was the captain. I was also not unpopular, so I had that going for me. I’d be picked first or close to first if the day’s activity was track & field. I excelled at running.
In short, yes I was nerdy and the smartest kid in the class (big fish, small pond, I’m far from the smartest person in the world outside my hometown) and would much rather have been reading a book, but I still made a decent showing socially and physically. Nerdy/smart and social/athletic are not mutually exclusive.
I did have one semester in high school where a gym teacher tried to teach us the rules of the games and technique. The problem? It was an “adaptive PE” class - I had arthritis and wasn’t supposed to do any running or jumping, there were a couple of Down’s Syndrome kids, one guy with epilepsy and a girl who claimed she had a rampaging metabolism and was supposed to eat as much as possible and move as little as possible. (I was skeptical that this was a thing, but she was very skinny.)
This coach lectured us every day about his tennis pro daughter and seemed to want us to strive to be her. He tried to teach us tennis, golf, bowling, basketball, and got really REALLY pissed off that we didn’t care about the game rules and just wanted to have fun within our physical/medical constraints. It was really the LAST class you want to build athletes from, so I don’t know what in the world he was thinking!
No. Couldn’t participate in a lot of sports due to horrible asthma. That ruled out most team sports. I think I went to the library or something.
PE presented other problems due to my home life (re: changing) but honestly the teachers were more bothered about it than I was.
I was actually quite good at the sports I could do, the individual ones that were either anaerobic or required stone aerobic activity the effects of which could then be quelled by medicine. Represented the school at sprinting (set a school record!) was very good at javelin and long jump. I’m one of the few people who wouldn’t have been picked by a crowd who actually did enjoy PE.
Well, most of the time. It sometimes did take me turning slightly blue before a new teacher would agree that anything requiring sustained aerobic exercise was not a good idea.
I was usually picked in the latter stages, mainly because I was such a small kid. But I was pretty quick, and coordinated enough. I also had enough friends to avoid it by that means occasionally.
The kids who got picked last most often were the spaz kids who also had no friends. They couldn’t kick a ball even if it wasn’t moving.
I was the standard skinny kid with no upper body strength, not very coordinated, and couldn’t run worth beans (that one is odd, my nephews inherited this trait). However, I liked sports and I wanted to be good at playing. I was picked in the last two (me or the really fat kid), naturally. In two years of little league I got one base hit. Every time I got up to bat I had to suffer jeers from parents in the stands “he can’t hit!” (thanks a*hole parents, way to go!) As is usual in little league, I was put in right field (praying the ball didn’t come to me) or second base. Now, on second base I actually contributed!
As with Martian Bigfoot, I found that no one ever actually tried to teach or coach. They just expected you to know how to play and have skills in-born. My dad wasn’t giving me any coaching, so I felt frustrated that I didn’t improve.
Anywho, the experience didn’t leave bad scars on my psyche, but it is part of who I am.
I don’t know that I was ever picked last actually, although I also remember being profoundly unconcerned about pick order.
Not that I was particularly skilled as an athlete - but I am tall and always have been on the taller end for my age group and was always at least reasonably coordinated. I blew at anything that required me to be fast, but I was great for endurance.
For most of my school career, it was pretty clear that pick order was based pretty firmly on factors other than athletic ability and my patience for social maneuvering was always pretty minimal.
Not when I was playing on my own free time, but I was usually one of the last when it came to sports we had to play for gym. This was perfectly fine with me, since I didn’t want to participate anyway. Daria fans know that scene in the opener where she watches a ball fly past her and makes no effort to hit it. That was me in high school gym.
I got picked last sometimes, but never based on ability to contribute. Maybe that got to me a lot more than if I had simply sucked at sports. It usually didn’t happen again, though.
I played all sports as if they were dodgeball. You know–we’d be playing soccer, and I’m in the corner of the field as far away from the ball as possible so that there was no possibility of me having to actually kick the ball. Or in softball, when I’m in the outfield and there’s a fly ball coming toward me, I just got out of the way so that someone else can catch it (or not, as the case may be).
As such, I was not necessarily last, since at the least I wasn’t a net negative to the team, just neutral. Pretty close to the end, though.
I’m not sure I ever perceived that getting picked last was somehow something to be embarrassed about. I was off in my own world anyway.
I was usually picked 12th out of the two team-captains and 8 others – no wait…:dubious:
I was quite aware that I was weak, uncoordinated, and slow – except, for some reason, in dodge-ball. So I fully expected to be picked last or left out.
I would have loved that, if only because it didn’t involve having to kick, catch, or throw a ball. Also, my glasses would’ve been safe.
I wish I’d been more assertive about going to the library on high-pollen and high heat/humidity days, but in 1980s Florida, no gym teacher cared that a kid used her inhaler 5 times in an hour.
I was picked last all through high school. I was never any good at sports.
Until college. I took up volleyball in college, and became a gym rat. Turns out, I was actually pretty quick, and had a 30" vertical leap. Who knew? I became pretty good at it. Suddenly, I was the first pick instead of the last. Very strange feeling.
I didn’t love gym class primarily because, for the first three months and the last three months of every school year, it was little more than a very thinly-veiled attempt to recruit for the football team.
When we played sports that weren’t football, gym class was cool.
Football in gym would have been nice. We mostly ran. We ran until there was actual snow on the ground and then we were back outside running as soon as the Spring thaw arrived. The indoor months were mostly de oted to rope climbing, gymnastics, and calisthenics. Playing any kind of game was fairly rare.
In elementary school (grade school) and junior high (middle school) the P. E. teachers considered me one of the best athletes and almost always made me a captain so I was the one doing the picking. I never knew what it was like to be picked last.
Then one time about ten or more years out of high school, several guys from a grade or two above me were having a reunion/baseball game. I knew some of them and I was invited to join in. Two captains were chosen and the picking of the teams began. People around me were getting chosen and I’m thinking to myself, “Are these guys crazy? Why aren’t they picking me?” Unlike some of them, I had stayed in good shape, but sure enough I was chosen last.
However, I did make the opposing team “pay” by homering in my first at bat and going something like 7 for 11 over the two games we played.
Started out being picked late because of my horrible running form. Other kids eventually figured out I had good hands for football, could hit the ball a long way in softball, and was deceptively fast. The process repeated in Junior High, where I hit a home run every time I batted in whiffle ball (the teacher even tried throwing breaking pitches to get me out, but it didn’t work). By high school I was middle of the pack. Endurance was my big strength, though; I was good enough to run cross country in college.
Gym was always fun–play time! (I actually don’t remember any kids not enjoying gym in grammar school. It was like an extra recess.) Even in high school, I loved it, especially softball days. Swim class is another story, especially first period swim class. Last thing I wanted to do at 8 a.m. was get half naked and jump into a cold pool of water and smell like chlorine for the rest of the day.
Jocks didn’t do gym class. If you played a competitive sport, team or individual, you got credit for the class. Practice and games required a lot more time than 40 minutes of gym class.
This was 30 years ago, and neither of my kids had to take gym either.
I remember having to do square dancing in third grade, though!
I was usually about next to last to be picked for neighborhood games, but it didn’t matter since we barely had enough to field decent-sized teams anyway.
I more than made up for it by being first pick as an adult for Calvin Klein underwear ads.
