Picked Last

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.