What are some of your WORST memories from P.E. growing up?

[Aurongel]

Too many to count. I went to a snooty upper class school so there were a bunch of pranks and other crazy shit that many kids were allowed to get away with - myself included.

The one that sticks out the most to me was from the eighth grade. A new kid with a southern drawl was pranked in the showers by a group of boys I played football with at the time. They soaped the floor near him so he slipped and cracked his head on this dumb waist high dividing wall. After class, they spread a rumor that he was sexually assaulted in the shower.

There are other awful stories that come to mind but this was always the one that I thought should have got those kids expelled. Instead they got 3 days of detention for laughing at the kid who fell when it happened because they couldn't prove they intentionally soaped the floor and started the rumors.

These types of schools are truly the worst, it gave me an early taste of reality seeing rich gets get let off with warnings for immeasurably cruel acts.

If it helps put this into context, that school district is considered to be among the top 30 most segregated in the country. I also had a graduating class size of 320 that comprised of 2 (TWO) black kids. Upstate New York is a fucking dystopia filled with the rusted detritus of a greater society that has largely moved on. I left two months after I graduated to move to Austin TX.

Report: CNY has most segregated schools in state

Children who attend Syracuse schools are almost six times as likely to live in poverty as the students across one of the district's borders.

www.syracuse.com

 

[thebeeks]

You know the opening to Carrie? I saw that shit happen firsthand in middle school. It didn't happen to me, thankfully, but I was absolutely there. While everyone was changing back into their regular clothes, one of the less popular girls realized she had started her very first period and her underwear/gym shorts were bloody. She panicked and one of the more popular girls (why) grabbed her underwear (why why why) and flung them to the other side of the locker room (WHY?!) to freak out the other girls changing. They shrieked and flung the underwear back to the popular girl, and this became a bizarre version of keep away, all while the less popular girl is sobbing, bleeding, and pleading to get her underwear back. Other people started throwing socks, gym shorts, pads, etc.
It was bedlam and I got outta there as fast as I could.

 

[Red]

Seventh grade we had two abusive PE teachers in a row. It was a Catholic school. First one was a woman who was verbally abusive and would yell at kids if they didn't do exactly what we wanted her to do. One monkey's paw later and we have a 30-something dude who would sit in the girl's changing room to watch them and threw pens and notebooks at the overweight girls during exercise. He'd mock them and try to get everyone else to join in. No one did. I and others immediately raised concerns to the principal but were dismissed out of hand. We were called troublemakers. He lasted for weeks before parents got involved. And it had to be the right parents, the ones with money.

That place spoiled all faith I might have had in humanity.

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

Can't think of bad memories of PE. It was great. Outside of PE none of the kids let me play sports with them but in PE they couldn't do anything about it. It was great for my self esteem because I loved sports I was very competitive but my only friends at school were the also not cool non sports type. PE was my outlet. Bonus points for the great feelings I got when I beat the people in PE that were shitheads to me.

 

[Bman94]

I honestly can't remember much. I had PE in school up until 5th grade. After 4th grade I didn't take PE ever again (which was fine by me).

 

[mhayes86]

Any dodgeball game because I wore glasses.

High school PE sucked because none of my friends were in my class, and I was a quiet, nerdy looking kid that got picked last for a lot of stuff. I was a good runner, so I liked track events, but team stuff was awful.

 

[Burai]

That no one actually taught me how to effectively exercise.

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Oh, God, so much this. So many people's health problems have a direct link back to PE classes putting them off exercise for life.

I took up yoga at 35 and I could have avoided a good 20+ years of back pain, posture and confidence issues if I'd had that available to me as a kid. I was so happy to hear that my son's school incorporates yoga into their PE.

 

[Vommy]

Getting chosen last in team games was always a real fun time :(

 

[Temascos]

So I'm one of those poor folks who need to list crummy P.E experiences:

• The GoldenEye Dance
• Swimming class - The teacher had it out for me as soon as I went into the pool, saying "LONG LEGS! LONG!" when I made damn sure my legs never bent, which made it harder for me to swim. Plus the other guys in the class set out to embarrass me by saying "Stop checking out the girl's butts!" when I was looking at my feet in order to avoid even checking out the girls. Constantly.
• Being picked last for everything.
• Team Sports - Dealing with a bunch of rage-zoid teenagers who get up in your face is not a good way to learn about playing a sport. Why the fuck would I ever play something when I get insulted every step of the way? Competition can kiss my ass.
• Everything was a competition. And I mean EVERYTHING. This probably explains why I'm a leftist who hates competing against others lol.
• Being told off for not wanting to compete against others in front of the class. (Fucking teachers. Let me just help others instead)

I did have some good experiences when I got to Year 11 (Not sure what the version is for the USA), when I was able to do golf with my friends and not have to worry about beating others.

P.E as a whole was demeaning and worthless, a one-size-fits-all strategy that made me feel useless and defective as a human being because I didn't like football. Nowadays I enjoy my walking, running, climbing, surfing, etc where I'm on my own or if it's with others that I can encourage them along.

 

[Sunster]

My gym teacher putting me in a group with the kids he "saw as more athletic" then realizing as the year went on that I did not belong in that group.

 

[Brandson]

I was reasonably coordinated and good at most sports as a kid, but there were 2 very embarrassing activities:

1. In one school we had to do gymnastics once a year. Although I could do all the normal sports, I just could not do somersaults, vaulting, or, the absolute worst one: high jump (I don't know why this was part of gymnastics but it was). They made the whole class line up and do high jump one after the other. So everyone would be watching while you failed. They really half-assed the instruction and literally none of the kids could do high jump. So it wasn't about clearing the bar, but rather just limit how much of a fool you look when you fail. Most people had the whole class laugh at them. It was mortifying.

2. In another school, literally half the year was spent doing some sort of interpretative dance nonsense in gym class. Again, it was really embarassing. I could've handled it for a week or two, but it lasted months. None of the other classes had to do this in gym, only us. So other classes would walk by the gym, look in and laugh, every single day.

There would be ways to do both of these things without scarring kids for life, but gym teachers just don't consider how this stuff affects the kids.

Another event that happened that was scary instead of embarassing, was our class was playing volleyball in the gym. The ceilings in the gym were very high. You're quite unlikely to ever hit them with a ball. However, during this one day, we had a guy in our class who although very intelligent, would sometimes pretend he was in a martial arts movie or something. He was serving the volleyball. Instead of doing a normal underhand serve, he let out one of his martial arts screams, whipped his arm around and hit the ball extremely hard almost straight up. He managed to hit a large, circular, metal air duct vent on the ceiling. The force of the impact dislodged it and it fell all the way to the floor. It would have killed a girl in our class but she dove out of the way at the last second. Everyone was kind of stunned at what just happened. Looking back, I still can't believe I witnessed this.

 

[Kyrios]

I pulled my groin in kickball for kicking the ball too damn hard and overextended lmao

God that hurt so much.

 

[BennyWhatever]

Flag Football in 7th grade. Biggest dude in class plowed right into me and I broke my clavicle.

 

[astro]

Standing at the edge of the field during a football game, completely disinterested and lost in imagination. Ball lands at my feet, run toward own goal and score.

Forgetting my PE kit and having to root around the lost and found bin for the least badly smelling/ill fitting kit.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Soccer in general. I hate it so much and too many lazy PE teachers thought telling kids to play soccer for an hour counted as a PE class.

During archery I shot an arrow and the feather slid though my skin and lodged itself deep. Very disturbing moment for me to see the arrow hit the bullseye, but when my eyes looked down saw there was a long lump of blue underneath the skin of my left index finger. Went to the nurse and she snipped it out, no pain meds, just snip snip with scissors and a bandage.

Otherwise I never really had a bad PE story.

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Not to downplay your story, I'm sure it was really unnerving, but god I wish we had archery at PE...

 

[gappvembe]

Having partners in gym for excercise. He was holding my feet while I was doing situps. Farting a couple of times going up and down.

 

[Zelas]

I loved PE. Only negative that happened during PE was going to the water fountain and slipping feet first into the air and landing square on the back of my head. I remember getting up somehow and walking to the stage to sit down. I could barely see anything.

 

[Watevaman]

My PE was pretty chill. I had it as one of my homeroom classes in high school so it was the first thing I did every morning. Most days, if it was warm outside, my friends and I just slowly walked around the track and talked shit. The only times it wasn't good for me was when we had to do stuff as a whole class, like play a game of basketball or volleyball. I don't mind physical activity but I don't like team sports so it was pretty much "find a way to look like I'm doing something."

 

[Torpedo Vegas]

Dislocated my knee playing baseball, other than that I enjoyed PE. Dodge ball let me settle a lot of my petty grudges with people.

 

[Elfgore]

I was sick a lot the only year we had PE in high school. One of these illnesses included me just vomiting if I did anything more than walk for maybe ten minutes. Our activity for that day was literally walk around the school's track for four laps. I probably vomited twenty times going around that track. Around the halfway point it just kinda became a routine.

 

[It’s Time To Go]

I don't think I had a good PE class. I was overweight,, got bullied anyway, and have no talent or interest in football whatsoever, and our PE classes were playing football for an hour 3 times a week. Our PE teacher used to call me a useless lump, a pudding, a giant blob, mr blobby, fatty, and that really sucked.

 

[acheron_xl]

The teacher that stood in the shower to personally hand out towels and smelled your jock to make sure it was being washed. Great guy, that teacher. Real piece of work.

 

[jetpacks was yes]

I always managed to avoid most P.E. accidents. I did hit a poor girl with a softball after I successfully took a swing with my bat, though that's really on her for her poor catching skills.

I have an absolutely horrible high school bathroom story, though. Just, the worse ever. But it's not related to this topic.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

All of my memories from P.E. are devastating. What a damaging experience.

The thing I always remember is that our school had a locker room with a shower but nobody ever used it because the idea of being naked in front of your classmates was a special sort of nightmare. I remember one kid one time was brave enough to do it and everyone was so embarrassed by his bare ass they changed as quickly as possible and rushed out of the locker room. By the time he finished showering he was the only one in there and was too embarrassed himself to come out and know everyone was waiting for him. Always felt sorry for him.

 

[MIMIC]

Oh man, I really can't think of any bad memories from PE (which we just called "gym"). Thinking back on it, now that I'm out, the locker room was fine for me. Guess I hid it well. But I was always fairly athletic back then so maybe that helped evade suspicion. I suppose my worst fear was being suspected, but it never happened (at least not to my face lol).

 

[That1GoodHunter]

The teacher that stood in the shower to personally hand out towels and smelled your jock to make sure it was being washed. Great guy, that teacher. Real piece of work.

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Jail

Electric Chair

Like, wtf?

 

[.exe]

Used to be overweight so the changing room was always anxiety inducing. Didn't really get picked on, but I got very self-conscious about it.

 

[acheron_xl]

Jail

Electric Chair

Like, wtf?

Click to shrink...

I ended up serving a few in-school suspensions for not showering. Middle school was just awesome.

 

[That1GoodHunter]

It's really sad, but I was fully expecting lots of stories about people's queerness or transness becoming an issue, the second they set foot on the changing/shower room. Both me, and my girlfriend at the time (both bi), would laugh (and mope) about making a b-line out of there, to avoid the awkwardness.

 

[Deleted member 3208]

Not too much, being honest. My school was mostly all girls, so there were few dudes and they hardly talked about homophobia or sexist shit. In a classroom of like 30 students, only 4 or 5 were male.

At most, once our teacher for some strange reason send us men outside of the gym to play soccer. Since the sun was scorching hot, we decided to just talk instead of play soccer. Our teacher found out and man, she was fucking angry. We failed that day and she put us on the bench for like an entire month.

 

[Kensation]

Getting nailed in the balls in dodgeball, like every time.

 

[BeI]

The only bad thing that happened to me in PE was constantly being afraid of the climbing because I was scared of heights at the time.

I think I accidentally gave someone else a bad PE story though. We were playing Soccer and I kicked the ball as hard as I could across the field, and it was going directly towards the quiet girl with her back turned. Then as the ball was falling down towards her, she turned around, a pout already on her face, and then she got smacked in the face by a ball from orbit, which knocked her on her backside. It was pretty savage.

 

[That1GoodHunter]

Dodgeball was always a fun one. I was remarkably good at dodging, but lacked the arm strength to ever be able to hit anyone. Multiple times it happened, that I was one of the last people standing in my team, which would devolve into me running like a chicken with it's head cut off. Only one of the many times I was to become the class laughing stock.

 

[Red Liquorice]

Well I hated PE and avoided it for the last 2 years of school - could count on one hand the amount of times I attended PE during those 2 years. Before that it was a twice weekly hell of systematic humiliation, physical, verbal and what might these days be called mild sexual abuse(?) - I didn't have it as bad as some did, but I was a regular target. The teachers were almost all psychopathic mini-dictators who allowed and encouraged the aggressive, violent boys to do whatever they wanted to.

 

[mantidor]

Everything.

It was a nightmare, but it was specially awful when I was forced to play stuff like soccer or basketball. Weirdly enough even though it was catholic all male school I don't remember much homophobia (in P.E. specifically, it was present everywhere else). We also had no communal showers, or showers for that matter. It was mostly that I hated sports.

 

[Rotobit]

I hated it for the usual reasons (team sports with no friends, no enthusiasm for any sports, etc.) so I skipped a few times. I had asthma which was a decently good excuse, but once a PE teacher called me out for it, referencing a popular footballer who had asthma. I just stared blankly at him and a bunch of other kids laughed at me not knowing who he was. It was very awkward.

The only time I really enjoyed PE was when it was with a relatively small group (max of 8 students) and we didn't really do team sports, just rock climbing and eventually exercise bikes. They were far more enjoyable and built up a better sense of team spirit.

Honestly the fixation on competition probably causes a lot of students to give up on exercise and sports entirely.

 

[Biggersmaller]

Not receiving the fucking Presidential Fitness Award because of the idiotic "sit-and-reach" test.

 

[That1GoodHunter]

Also, I don't know if anyone had this happened to them with a particularly bad PE teacher. The same racist teacher, as the other stories, if we ever pissed him off, would make us play some version of "Ultimate dodgeball". Same rules, but he would add baseballs and basketballs into the pool of foam balls....

I would always dip and take the hit to my grade whenever the activity came around, but it always looked brutal.

 

[The Albatross]

Assuming this is phys ed class / gym (I dunno why but in New England we called it "Gym" usually).

I loved gym, it was my favorite time of the day every week, looked forward to it all day and gym days were my favorite days of the week.

Only legit bad memory aside from plenty of calamities and getting hurt, was when I was in high school the cool thiing was to pretend that you were too cool for gym, so we were standing around and this kid who always bullied me picked me up and slammed me into a door for no reason, which happened plenty of times from thisi kid but this time there was a nail on the door used for hanging announcements/signs/etc and it went into my back and cut me down pretty good. I was too ashamed to tell anyone because like ... getting picked up and slammed into a door and getting hurt is embarrassing when you're ~15, but I eventually told my mother a day or two later, lying about how it happened, and I had to get a tetenis shot and a week of antibiotics.

Spoiler

Regarding the kid who bullied me, he was acting out on his own repressed/ashamed feelings... All came out several years later. I never held any grudges against him or anything, but years and years later he was in one of those "It Gets Better" PSA campaigns, and he talked about being bullied in high school...... and I wanted to be like, dude, you're a better person now but you were the biggest fucking bully of anybody, and nobody at school bullied him. But w/e, bygones being bygones.

 

[daveo42]

Being the fat kid.

 

[Ramsiege]

Some assholes stole my pokemon cards out of my locker.

 

[viskod]

My private christian school didn't allow you to shower or even have towels to wipe sweat off with after PE so depending on what we did you just had to change back into your clothes all hot and sweaty and be a gross stinking mess for the rest of the day. So everyone at my school tried to get through PE doing the bare minimum and tried to sign up for the last period PE class.

 

[davidnolan13]

cross country in plimsoles as id forgotten my trainers. arseholes.

 

[FreezerGeezer]

Man, I loved PE. Can't relate to any of these replies.

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I have to echo this. Was a great time just playing sports and hanging with mates.

 

[Desi]

1. A bird pooped on my sock while sitting on the tennis court. No one seemed to notice but I remember

2. During flag football once instead of as a running back they put me on the front for defense. Once the ball was hiked back I went flying as I was knocked over by the bigger kids.

3. Once during wrestling I missed my weight class and had to wrestle someone a few classes higher. Was a pretty good match but the kid they had counting points must not been paying attention since they said I lost.

Not the WORST but I remember these events are lot.

 

[Mr. Sam]

I think what becoming a relatively athletic, well built person who enjoys sports since school has taught me is that PE is basically the least effective way to get anybody to enjoy physical exercise, and in fact a pretty effective way to turn people off it for life.

 

[Deleted member 83599]

Definitely letting out a real screamer of a fart in the middle of sit-ups.

Also failing an endurance test in which we had to run a full mile because I was overweight and asthmatic.

(These days, I regularly run 6+ miles, so fuck you, gym class.)

 

[Joni]

In primary school, I wasn't allowed to really participate because of a surgery at a young age. When going to secundary school, the doctor didn't renew that order because he knew the teacher for the first two years was such an asshole he would make my replacement tasks so hard and cruel that it would be better if I just participated and paid attention to see that it didn't screw up my body. Thank god the teacher for the four years after that was an amazing guy that scored on trying and attitude.

 

[Rangerx]

My white underwear was in the wash with my mother's pink dress and was completely dyed pink. I forgot it was P.E that day and had everyone in class howl in laughter when we changed. I was called pink knickers for the rest of the year.

 

[CrocodileGrin]

You remember that first time when your coach tells you you're going to learn to wrestle and you get super excited, and then realize it's nothing like WCW/WWE and completely sucks?