I was not an athletic child.
There is a picture of me at age 10, standing at the start of a church
picnic race. I was wearing a red and
white plaid shirt, red velour shorts pulled up nearly to my armpits, and flip
flops. But it was my posture – my
totally nonathletic stance – that made me laugh. And cringe.
And it became clear why I was often picked last in PE.
It took awhile for my muscles to catch up with my height,
but by high school I wasn’t totally hopeless.
I was a mean shot in basketball and very good at table-tennis, though the
memories of being picked last still remain.
Imagine my heartache when my daughter told me recently that she
was picked last for a team. It didn’t
seem to bother her as it bothered me, but it made me wonder, again, why adults do
this to kids. It’s not like there’s only
one way to balance teams.
I’m guessing most PE teachers or coaches were athletic as
children and, as a result, were popular – thus never experiencing the agony of
standing there, kicking at the dirt, trying to look as if you didn’t care as
you waited to hear your name, knowing your team didn’t really want you but,
rather, were stuck with you.
You’d think, with all the bullying awareness campaigns,
adults who inflict this psychological pain upon children would realize that they
are helping the bullies – essentially putting a target on the backs of those
picked last.
And I have one thing to say about that. Please stop.
