Phwoooaaar!!
There was only 1 reason to ever do PE at our school...

Miss Chambers.

She was like a goddess in a tracksuit,and had all the boys (probably a few girls too) salivating with pre-pubescent lust.
(bdgr can't think of anything witty to type here, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 13:15, Reply)

The bat.
I've always been a little eccentric. Eclectic music taste, an affinity for bizarre films, and trippy books. Consequently, my friends were always a little odd, too. There was one, who was one of my closer pals, who was the weirdest. He was weird in that we weren't actually too alike, for friends. He didn't like music (At all), he didn't, to my knowledge, read a lot, and he seemed to enjoy most films- without being able to pick a favourite or least favourite. However, we clicked on a different level. Despite our differences, we were able to talk about pretty much anything all day. We were both, at the time, socially lacking, but between our 5 years together, I don't think there was ever a single awkward pause.

Anyway, enough backstory. This same guy (I'm pretty sure he's a B3TAN, so I'll just call him 'M') was, as I said, crazy. Not just because we weren't alike, but because he was, quite simply, batshit insane. He occasionally talked to himself, made weird noises to himself, and often had anger problems. For example, he slugged a kid in the face because he called him a name twice over the period of about a year. Other than these, like I said, he was a lovely chap. He was also incredibly athletic, so naturally, he loved PE. Loved it so much that he became something of a monster, because he was THAT competetive.

If we were playing tennis, we'd hang out in a closely-knit group of our 6 misfits (myself included), and we'd just have a bit of fun. Knock a ball around for maybe 10 minutes, then sit down for a while, and crack some jokes and banter. One day, however, the above-average athlete M decided that he hated his class, and chosen to come into our class to hang out with the 6. It meant he wasn't academically challenged anymore, but it'd be good fun in the end, right? Wrong. With this volatile ball of buzzing energy amongst us, there'd be no more cracking neither jokes, nor banter.

With him in the group now, he immediately began to attract attention. He was very loud. If he won the game, he'd run around, screaming, declaring himself the winner, and everybody else wankers. If he lost, he'd run around, screaming, insisting himself the winner, and everybody else wankers. And when he was hitting/smacking/bouncing/kicking the ball, he'd shout/grunt/shriek/yell. I think it seems quite unnecessary to add that, in the early 00's Britain, the attention he received was not that of the positive kind. The thugs, chavs and bullies began to pick on him. Calling him names, hitting him, stealing his bag...it all went a bit downhill from there.

We'd always remarked how peaceful he was in the visage of bullies. For someone who makes such a fuss with something as trivial as kicking a ball around for two lessons a week, he'd do pretty much nothing when faced with people threatening his wellbeing. Until one fateful day of rounders. The yob that usually said picking on him wasn't cool somehow decided that it was cool. When M was at the batting stand, said yobbo kept shouting obscenites at him. Apparently what he'd shouted hit a nerve, since everything that guy shouted put M off. It takes a lot to put him off his sport. Then- and this part still is remembered, fondly, in that natural slow-mo vision that happens to your most intense memories- one more thing was shouted. I can't remember what it was, since I was staring at M's now-rage-filled face. Anyway, this really hit a nerve with him, since he turned round, dropped the bat, and screamed "you cunt!"

He picked up the bat again, ran over to the bully, kicked him in the groin, and then smacked him upside the head with the baseball bat in one fluid movement. I still remember, clear as day, the red cloud of blood that shot up from his nose, and the crowd of students of all ages gasping "fuck!" in unison. The PE teacher ran over to M, grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him back to the PE office. The rest of us didn't know where to go. Staring at the whimpering bully, or what was to become of the still smouldering fire of pure rage that was our friend. We ended up staying with the bully, since he was a bit of a twat.

In the end, it turned out our friend was let off nicely, since he was obviously sick of being bullied. He did get a butt-load of detentions, though, but considering a nicer, more well-aimed swing could have pretty much completely fucked that guy up, we decided that was actually a bit of a cakewalk. Nothing else was said about it. The bully seemed to be on good terms with M (out of fear, I imagine), we continued until leaving school with him on our PE group, and the detentions were never talked about.

Needless to say, though, when he was batting, we shut our goddamn mouths.
(almightyjoey is most likely listening to Electric Wizard on, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 12:57, Reply)

All this talk of Cross Country running has reminded me
At high school, we used to have 3 Sports Carnivals a year: Swimming, athletics and Cross Country. The Cross Country carnival was held at the Lane Cove River Park each year. Cross Country running is a) tedious and b) irritating.

As my friends and I got to about year 9 (14 in 1984), we made it more fun. One year, we walked the course. Slowly. I think by the time we ambled across the finish line, we'd been overtaken by at least 4 whole other age races of competitors. We were given a hero's welcome for actually finishing.

Another time, we just kept walking, and ended up at the Macquarie Shopping Centre, so we could have some Maccas (McDonalds for you non-Aussies). That's a walk of about 7km one way. We strolled back for the end of proceedings.

There was also the time in Year 12 when we relocated the long jump pit to the middle of the oval, so we could have a Hawaiian themed beach party, but that's not entirely OT.
(David CopAFeel Used to be The_Elcat - Spouting crap since 1970., Sun 22 Nov 2009, 12:24, Reply)

We have the evidence
I went to an all-boys school and it was a brutal as one would expect for a bunch of Aussie teenagers. Our PE teacher decided to video us as we performed gymnastic moves (so we could see how crap we were). Anyway, we all sat down after one 'shoot' and laboured through a fairly boring video of spotty teenagers until the camera captured one of the jocks beating shit out of one of the weedier kids in the class. Instead of taking disciplinary action, the teacher laughed and rewound the tape so we could watch the beating again.
(finnigan70, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 9:51, Reply)

Long distance running
My school was quite strict but the head so wanted to beat the posh school down the road at running he let me cut class and go training. I really liked being out in the woods and seeing the deer and rabbits. With all that extra training I was odds on favorite to win the big race
Anywho, the day of the race, I was like minutes in the lead and everything and as I got onto the home straight I just thought - 'fuck it'
(schrodingers cat now you see me, or not, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 8:24, 3 replies)

My PE teacher was a dirty sod!
My PE teacher in the mid 80s was a welshman who had rugby on the agenda for every lesson.

In one PE lesson, I had a note from my mum to say I couldn't participate, so for those that didn't, they ended up in a classroom and had to write about the sport the rest of the class took part in.

Cue the end of the lesson and the PE teacher told everyone to get a shower including me. I argued that I didn't need one because I'd been sat down writing an essay for the duration of the lesson, but he was having none of it. We argued for a good 10 minutes before he threatened me with a detention. The rest of the class had long since left, leaving me on my own. Reluctantly, I took a shower, and he stood there and watched me shower the whole time.

It wasn't until I had left school that I was told he had a history of this sort of thing, the dirty sod!
(a5972s, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 8:18, 4 replies)

The Tribes
At the start of each year, the school would be divided (on the basis of last name) into four teams that would compete at various sports carnivals over the year. Swimming carnival. Athletics carnival. Cross country carnival.

The PE teachers would then do their best to build team spirit and goad the teams into out-doing each other. Yeah yeah, like I'd really want to build a grudge against the A-K White Pages.

Then there was the super-short shorts wearing buff dickhead PE teacher who was so much like something out of Right Said Fred's "I'm too sexy". He apparently wasn't gay as he seduced an obscene number of young girls who had been entrusted in his care. Apparently that go him into quite a bit of trouble when he was eventually busted shagging one young girl too many.
(xixax, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 1:54, Reply)

Lesson learned
I once was caught cutting gym class and my P.E teacher was pissed at me. I had to run around the track for 3 hours and if I stopped running he'd whip me. So it's 6:30 PM and I'm jogging and I yell, "Hey coach! Can I go home now?" and he says to me, "Fine. But you gotta gimme a piggy back to my car." So It's nearly 7 PM and I have my P.E teacher on my back and he weighs about 158 pounds. I get him to his car at about 7:20 PM and I fall on the pavement. My coach says to me, "Shit now you did it! I missed COPS! Damn you!" Months later he gave me a break and I never cut gym again.
(ami2weird4u I have 10 penises., Sun 22 Nov 2009, 1:39, 2 replies)

Swimming with brown dolphins...
I hated swimming because of the ribbing boys get in the changing rooms, but moreso because the warm water made me want to pee....and shit. It was comfy you know? I'd be no good in these sensory dep tanks because i'd be farting in the tub.

So yeah, one day i'd slipped a fish into my y-trunks whilst swimming and spent a good half hour dragging a steamer through the pool (in the near presence of the entire class around the side listening to instructions whilst the excited ones dipped their heads down and spat out on resurfacing) in my trunkettes.

Worst of all, I was spotted in the changing rooms pulling said shit out of my arse with a green paper towel and putting it in the sink.
(Klangtarnflatchslapper looks just like a Telefunken U-47, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 1:01, 1 reply)

They're thick
PE teachers are thick.
Now I know that isnt exaclty revolutionary or secret information, but they are.
Can't get a proper job, become a teacher.
Can't get a teacher job, become a PE teacher.

There is various evidence to support the low IQ, but I will supply one from my own experience.

I must ahve been about 13-14, first or second year in 'big' school.
I had lost my rugby boots, not a major issue to me, i hated rugby. However I duly went looking for them, and got 'caught' by the PE teacher (well deputy). I explained and he left me to it.

I didnt find them, so when rugby was due to start most of the year (180 odd) kids weere there in their virtually identical kit. I was their on teh sideline with the other 'naughty' or 'lazy' (or fucking intelligent, depending on your point of view) kids.

Said PE teacher came along the line to confirm that we had good reason to not be participating in the ritual and painful child abuse, that was known as rugby. He got to me. He looked at me a bit. He looked up and down the line. He asked me 'have you got a brother'. Not conecting the dots, I said yes; I wasnt going to lie and I *do* have a brother, he is 2 years older than I am, and was 3 years ahead of me at shcool, and on the point of going to Cambridge.

Teacher then said, 'well you not having much luck then are you, your brother forget his boots too'

Not knowing quite what to say to this, and not wishing to give the lumbering neanderthal any reason to decide that i should be playing barefoot or some other ridiculous punishment for answering back, I shut up.

Only a bit later did i realise how dumb this was.

He thought i had a brother, presumably a twin brother. He looked along the whole line and *couldnt* see someone else looking like me. He didnt recognise me, as he only paid attention to the ten or so national quality players in the year.

Its not as funny when i type it, but he was clearly a typical PE teacher, and it was funny at the time and thinking about it afterwards.
(Wankle-Rotary-Engine -pronounced 'Throat Wobbler Mangrove', Sun 22 Nov 2009, 0:34, 3 replies)

The Class Hypochondriac
When i was at school in my PE class there was a girl. She was the token fat kid, however she was no ordinary fat kid oh no! she has had every disease/physical ailment going. This girl would claim she had rabies as long as she was sure it would get her out of PE.

She would be sat outside the head of PE's office which was near the changing rooms and she'd have a bandage on her arm/leg/wherever or she'd have her hand on her head or stomach. Whenever someone would walk past she would wince with pain and groan to get their attention. She'd keep this up till someone would say
"Are you ok? Whats wrong?"
Then she'd give you some story about breaking her fingers or some other such bollocks despite the fact that all these breaks, sprains and diseases would be miraculously cured whenever we did trampolining (the one sport she actually liked). Trampolining was usually the day after whichever sport she tried to avoid.

Our teacher pretty much caught on to this after she claimed to be a really bad asthmatic so couldnt do cross country running, rounders, football or netball. At parents evening the teacher brought this up only to be told by her parents that she was a perfectly healthy child. Her parents also had no knowledge of these sprains, breaks or diseases that she "had". The doctor and hospital visits were also non existant.

So a few weeks later we had to do rounders. She pulls the usual
"Oh miss my asthmas acting up" excuse,
really hamming it up. Our teacher then told her that exercise would do her good and made her put her PE kit on and run laps around the field as punishment, while we played rounders.

During our game, the girl did one lap and a half. She was just near our teacher who was playing as backstop when she dramatically sighed, lay down on the floor then for some bizarre reason started breathing heavily and shouting
"HELP ME! OH HELP! I'VE COLLAPSED".

Our teacher looked at her,
"You're gonna have to collapse a bit quieter we're in the middle of a game here".
After about 5 minutes she got back up again and started running, only to fake collapse again in the same place 2 laps later much to the amusement of the rest of us.
(stitched, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 0:26, 2 replies)

My PE teacher
Used to impart nuggets of wisdom like 'Freedom is a road seldom travelled by the multitude' and '911 is a joke'.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 0:21, Reply)

Never EVER did P.E. and boy was I hated!!!
I never ever did PE at secondary school and boy did the PE mistress hate me for it! She used to make my life hell. Basically just before I hit secondary school I was found to have a bunch of tumours in my bones and even after they were cut out and years of physio my legs were too knackered to risk contact sport- to this day I cant do any impact aerobics but can don a nice pair of heels. I still had to sit on cold playing fields and watch all the others run about. Best moment of my PE lessons was the time when the dykey old cow had bent down to tie up her shoe- laces I was at the edge of a field with all the other girls not doing it (periods as always) and her trousers split the dirty old mare wasnt wearing any underwear after we recovered from the shock the laughter came out it was the grocest view but her face was a pure picture- the entire year came over to see what was going on no doubtedly brought forth by my laughing which is a cross between a hyena a blocked drain with a good smattering of pig snorts. I'm sure she blamed me for the rumours that then went round about her having a pair of bollox!
(JuicyJ, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 0:09, Reply)

Shit I hated PE
More specifically I hated the showers afterwards. Even more specifically I hated getting my 'tits' out. My chest steadfastly refused to grow past a 36A the whole time I was in school. Everyone else seemed to have a decent bra-ful. Not me, oh no. Cue one lad saying "Sal are you wearing a bra?" Me "yes why?" him "exactly"

Nowadays they're quite a bit bigger, not outrageously so, but a decent handful. As I am now in my mid thirties I wonder if their youthful lack of size/weight is the reason they're still pretty firm and high on my chest. Or is it just genetic?

Oh and a midwife once told me I had "the perfect nipples for breastfeeding". Whatever that means. Atari players' thumbs, probably. My son's eyes still glaze over when he catches a glimpse of them, and he's nearly five. It's nice to be appreciated.

If only I'd known when I was 13/14/15 that I'd grow into and be quite happy with my Devil's Dumplings.....I'd still have been shit at sport but I wouldn't have cared so much.
( Sallyrsm, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 22:37, 12 replies)

At sixth form PE was compulsary
At sixth form PE was compulsary expect as it was held on a different site a lot of people went missing between the two locations. I went because I fancied one of the girls but didn't get anywhere. We were meant to be playing badminton and some were very competitive but my friends and I just made a token effort at hitting the shuttlecock to eachother occasionally but mainly talking. The teacher would pass through about 15 mins into the lesson and never be seen again.
One week we were just about to head into the school hall/gym when Mark digs out a pregnancy testing kit which he took with him and handed it to a young lady by the name of Hayley who he obviously knew better than I thought he did. She just put in on the edge of stage, played a few games of badminton and took it with her at the end.
(jvz, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 22:30, Reply)

cross country
if you're going to cheat and cut across the golf course, make sure you don't end up beating the (cross country event-winning) teacher back to school.

Once, when I was younger, the whole school did a cross-country event. Lower school (including me) went first, and then when they finished, the sixth form.
I came last. Out of the entire school.
The guy who came second-last was in the year below me and he got a severe bollocking for taking the piss. they must have taken one look at my face and decided i couldn't have been faking :(
( mictoboy shitting in your cunt since, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 22:28, 1 reply)

Never done one.
I have never participated in a p.e lesson since I was 8, I managed to get out of every one of them since then, my p.e teacher was furious that I managed to evade every p.e lesson and watch smugly from the side of the hall as everyone else played sports, without getting a single detention. I also threatened to report him for psychological abuse, he soon backed off.
(l.verity [Insert witty signature], Sat 21 Nov 2009, 22:21, Reply)

Me and my brother
There are two of us. Me, and my brother. Oddly, we share a last name. Otherwise, we don't look that alike. Let's just say that one of us is suave, well-dressed, and good looking, and the other one is me.

But our PE teacher at school couldn't get his head around that one. According to him, there was one of us. So he'd give me the old nudge-nudge-wink-wink about exactly who'd he'd spotted walking out of a shop holding a suspicious brown paper bag at the weekend. I wasn't around that weekend. Still, at least I found out what my brother was up to.

Then, one term, disaster struck. As I've said before, I'm horribly piss-poor at sports, but I was vaguely less crap at basketball. And so both of us signed up for the basketball option. And so up we strolled. You could see his poor little brain struggle with the concept, as it rolled around lost on the vast playground of his pituitary. Bless. What fun we had.

The next term was worse, as another person with our surname showed up. How we smirked as he painfully counted: *one*, *two... *many*...
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 21:24, Reply)

Do you remember the pecking order?
I do, although I am now well advanced in years I remember the pick-a-team-member heirarchy that for five years without fail went something like this:

The P.E teacher would always chose the same two or three favourites girls from the register to pick teams for nockey, retball or hounders. Those girls chosen would then have all the power in the world conferred on them to let you know in no uncertain terms where you stood in the pecking order of life. It went:

* popular, sporty girls
* popular, fashionable girls
* that scary bitch who no one wants to mess with
* mid-range popular girls - the ones who get "quiet & helpful" on reports and are just nice (known to dot "i"s with hearts)
* minions of the scary bitch
* (optional extra here: best friend of girl chosing, if they had argued)
* assorted hangers on
* that fat girl everyone feels sorry for

and finally, yours truly, last with that awkward pause before I was 'chosen.' Crucially, the one who both hated P.E. and was known to be crap at it. They would have been better with a hoard of three-eyed, one legged Siberian donkies being ridden by resurrected Christmas pixies on their team than trusting me anywhere near a ball. So you can't really blame them for picking me last. I have no idea if it was the same in boys lessons. However, as the years past I decided enough was enough and by the end missing P.E was more of a sport than any of the games we were supposed to be doing.

My methods included:

I was born with a mild form of eczema on my hands, arms and feets. Whilst it was often perfect bully fodder, it was endlessly useful to get me out of anything from badminton and gym to cross country, even if the latter involved no contact with any sporting equipment.

In rounders I made the crucial discovery that, when fielding, if you stand to the right of first post, then because most people are right handed, the ball will go out to the left side of the field. My friend and I would go out deep field well to the right of first post and daydream away, but had there been any left handed supreme hitters, we would have been there for the team.

I also had forging my mother's signature down early on, and was even on occasion happy to write said notes for friends. Eventually though, in the happy case of having a supply teacher for most of our GCSEs, I managed to train her so well that when she saw me approaching ten minutes into the lesson she would just sigh and hand over the pen for me to keep the score. In a small corner of Gloucester there may very well have been children cheated of a rightful victory as I had little clue what I was writing. I was for a time much more successful at nanopet and tamogotchi sitting as lots of girls would give them to me to care for. Looking after 3 dinosaurs, a cat, an egg and some blobby squib thing whilst all around me were hefting away at the gym horses is a fond memory.

It wasn't all good though, I remember that our class had to take a breath as one to walk past the boys changing rooms to get through to ours, such was the fumes from their apparently eternal deodrant fight. There has been lots of talk of the horror of showers, but surely that is better than deodrant on sweat. French after PE in the summer term, period 6, was nothing short of Ordeal by Lynx Africa as you tried to survive in an atmosphere of 60/40 deodrant B.O thanks to Mademoiselle who refused to open the windows. It wasn't my least favourite subject, but there were absolutely no pangs of regret on striding out of there forever on my last P.E lesson, looking at the year sevens coming in, and knowing their fate was no longer mine.

Length: never an issue, could never throw it that far
(treaclebriggs, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 20:28, 4 replies)

School Rugby & weirdo teacher
In the 70's I went to a boys sec. mod. school in west london.

In that school we had quite a good rugby team for whom we used to play on the Saturday Morning & Club Rugby on Saturday afternoon's.

When we played for the school at home inevitably the slightly camp (and I now realise) gay head of English always some how managed to end up in the shower room as we all had our showers !!!!

He sometimes offered to help the more Nieve players to dry their backs for them.

When we finally got to the end of the 5th year and most of us were leaving (and still playing Club Rugby) we took part in the Annual Leavers v The Staff match; Revenge for 5 years of a failed education was exacted !!!!

Unfortunatly the English Teacher was too old to play but still turned up to watch, Oh it was such a shame when someone 'accidentaly' shoulder charged him as he tried to put a memember of the Staff team into touch just where he was standing.

I dont think he was too impressed when not one member of his colleagues rushed to his aid.

I hated that guy & that school, The Maths teacher told me to ".... go and sit at the back of the class and play cards with the other idiots"

I found out after I left their he died a very Painful death.

When I left that school I could hardly count and my writing was and still is shite.

Sorry But I enjoyed my PE Lessons !!
(ebagumsidog, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 20:21, Reply)

chase has reminded me of benchball
i miss bench ball. halfway through high school health and safety turned it into mat ball. its a lot easier to throw a ball to someone on a mat. and less fun.

and in all the years of school before that, no one had managed to fall off the bench. someone nearly DIED playing football. iv fallen off the trampoline onto my face. they hire a criminal to teach us. but no, we're not allowed to stand on benches.
(ladyintheradiator, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 19:45, Reply)

Swimming coaches
Well, it's physical education, isn't it?

I swim most mornings. Not for fun, because it's boring as hell, but as way of keeping vaguely fit. Because I swim in several different pools I see and have seen the coaches of many different children's swimming clubs. Without exception, every single one was somewhere on the weird .. creepy continuum.

Male? Check. Pot bellies? Check. Pedal pushers trousers as only otherwise seen on fourteen year old girls? Check. Squeaky, nasal voices? Check. The similarity is uncanny - is it a prerequisite for training, a module in the course or a natural tendency in grown men who choose to spend hours of their spare time watching and shouting at sweaty and mostly naked children.

Seriously. I have never seen a swimming coach to whom I would entrust a child of mine.
(ubergeekian, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 19:44, Reply)

Picked last for teams in PE? Have a FREE laptop!
I was crap at school sports, in common with many b3tans, and was often shrieked at and accused of not even TRYING! by red-faced, furious PE teachers.

However, in my 40s, back at university, I asked Student Services for help over my piss-poor handwriting, and was soon diagnosed by a county educational psychologist as dyspraxic*.

Dyspraxics have poor co-ordination and two left feet. We are clever but have poor spatial ability and can't catch for toffee.

We also get given free laptops and electronic voice recorders and extra time in exams.

If YOU are unco-ordinated, have scruffy writing, can't do any form of sport or dance without falling over - you may be dyspraxic. If you're in education, demand an assessment, and after diagnosis, collect your goodies. Simples!

* Cheekily, I did a Masters too and had a shedload more freebies.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 19:01, 5 replies)

Just a message for my old PE teacher at school.
Just because I'm taller than usual for a fourteen year old girl does not mean I will be any good at netball. I hope my last two years participating in netball, (at your adamant request), and jumping and flailing about like a spaz in goal defence finally drove that fact home to you.
( girlinthehole, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 18:36, 4 replies)

Matball
In PE, on rainy days, we played the greatest game ever. It was called Matball. It was basically kickball, with the following differences:
* The "bases" were large wrestling mats
* You had to run around the bases twice to score
* There could be any number of runners on a base at the same time
* Each baserunner could run around the bases in either direction (but couldn't switch directions)

It was awesome - there were the kids who would get to one base and just stay there for the whole game, too scared to run. Packs would form and run together, for safety in numbers, but that made for more collisions with packs running the opposite way round. I hated PE with a passion, except for matball, which I absolutely loved.

Shortly after I graduated, some idiot forgot to take his fingers out of a metal ventilation grate on the wall before running. For that piss-poor reason, the school banned matball from then on.

It's two-for-the-price-of-one story day, so here's the second:

I sucked at softball. I could field alright, but every time I came up to bat, it was a grounder to shortstop, then thrown out at first. Probably because I was an only child raised by a single mom in the middle of the boonies, so growing up had no one to practice baseball/softball with, and just never got the hang of it. Anyway, one bastard always taunted me when I came up to bat - chanting my name, predicting (accurately) where I would hit the ball, etc. This is the same guy who once broke my watch and bloodied my forearm with a single swing of his stick during a hockey game on a different day in PE. One day, my friends who were into baseball took me out to a field after school, and taught me the basics for a couple hours. Next time in gym class, same f*cker started up again from his position as third baseman. I hit the ball, it sailed directly over his head, and the look on his face was priceless. It almost went over the fence, too. I never heard a word from him again after that.
(chase, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 18:32, 1 reply)

The worst part was the teachers.
Now, I accept there are some PE teachers who are relaxed and friendly people (at our school we had one who also taught maths one year, and managed to single-handedly motivate an entire class into turning their terrible grades around), but for every good teacher there seem to be three terrible ones, overdosing on their own testosterone as they charge up and down a field bawling at people half their size.

Not being very athletically inclined, I've never understood the PE teacher mentality myself. If a child has trouble understanding quadratic equations or something, you'd help them out, explain it, and maybe show them a few examples until they get the hang of it. But if the same child isn't very good at football, it's apparently acceptable to publicly belittle them, and being a slower runner than others is a result of 'not trying hard enough' and can be remedied by shouting.

I hated the whole subject, but especially cross-country running. I failed to see the academic potential in jogging three times round the local park. One day though, my friend and I decided we'd actually go for it properly. Normally we'd jog for a bit, then give up and spend the rest of the lesson strolling casually and having a bit of a chat. But not this time! This time we were going to jog the whole way, really push ourselves, and earn the respect of our peers!

An hour later we've done it. Out of breath, with stiches in our sides, but we made it to the finishing line. We weren't the first ones there by a long shot, but we weren't coming in last either. Our teacher (one of the reasonably understanding ones) was impressed. "Good stuff boys," he said kindly, "you're all done. Head back to the changing rooms when you're ready."

Thouroughly pleased with ourselves, knowing we'd achieved our goal, we took the walk to the changing rooms at a casual pace, giving us time to recover our stamina. It was there that we ran into our other teacher, a sadistic rugby player with a face the shape and texture of a King Edward potato.
"Hmph," he muttered derisively, "you two don't look tired out. You can't have been trying very hard. Better give me twenty press ups."

Our protests that we had been trying, and only looked refreshed because we'd rested on the way back fell on unsympathetic tuber-like ears, and we were forced to do press ups in the cold mud (starting over again if he felt we'd done one wrong, of course) while the rest of the class filed past unmolested, scornful smiles on their faces.

I never bothered with cross-country again, and was very pleased when the bastard teacher left at the end of the year. In later years we were allowed to choose our own options for PE. My friends and I quickly cottoned on to the fact that if we chose Table Tennis we were generally left unsupervised (we had gained reputations as sensible lads by then, and the teachers knew we could be relied on not to dick about) and since the school only had one functioning ping-pong table, the rest of us could just sit playing cards for most of the afternoon.
(Uncle Comrade, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 17:58, Reply)

Standing out for the wrong reason
A repost, but relevant:-
Now physical feats of speed or endurance are not my thing. PE teacher never did learn my name. Not a bad thing. I'm more of a brainy type. Of course this means I had my fair share of bullying but I like to think it was jealousy based. I can see some of you are nodding and some want to punch me already.

Aged 12, at a selective boys grammar school, I'm trying to make my mark with a new load of 30 class mates. PE class warms up with the usual running around exercises until Sir sets one particular task.
"Everyone in the middle of the gym, now run and touch every wall and return to the centre"
This is the cue for every boy to immediately scatter to the middle of the nearest wall before turning around and running fast as their little spindly legs could carry them to the middle of the opposite wall (some unfortunately meeting another boy coming the other way) before returning to the middle of the gym, turning 90 degrees (or pi/2, as I like to think of it) and repeating with the last two opposite walls.

Now I really don’t like to do more than I have to; one of life’s natural slackers perhaps. I thought for a moment and proceeded to jog sedately to the corner of the gym where I touched two walls at once, ambled to the opposite corner, touched the last two walls and returned leisurely to the centre of the gym arriving way before the speediest of my peers.

I had singled myself out to staff and pupils alike as too-bloody-clever-for-his-own-good.
(Rich T has a clever and witty sig, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 17:25, 6 replies)

here! watch this...
Stumpy was never destined for a glittering career in applied physics, never the less watch we did. The cricket bat soared upwards, tumbling and rolling towards a lazy zenith, then stalled, suspended in the grey sky for what should have been ample time to consider the consequences. A slow roll signalled re entry. Slack jawed we stood transfixed as the heavy lump of willow hurtled back to earth. The act of smashing into Stumpy's cranium followed by the immediate crumple of his body was seamless. It was like he had been vaporised and his clothes had collapsed in a neat pile.

Those air ambulances are really cool.
(omnishambles ™ has been fucking things up big style since, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 16:41, 1 reply)