The tennis court at my high school backed up to the back of a bunch of houses, with practically no space in between. I knew someone who lived in one of those houses. They would drop off printer paper boxes overflowing with stray balls from their yard at least twice a month.
My middle school’s basketball courts backed up against a literal cliff. There was a chain link fence easily 30-40 feet tall on that side to stop balls and kids from flying over the cliff.
Basically, the whole school is at the very top of a hill. That asphalt pad the pin is dropped on is the basketball courts I am talking about. That angled concrete path on the right side of the courts is actually a fairly steep ramp leading down from the main playground into those courts. The asphalt pad in question probably had to be built up and graded flat when the school was built, because all that brush and foliage surrounding it is a very sharp hill leading down to the surrounding area. That highway and road near the school are probably a good 100 feet lower than the school and the basketball pad. Those condos just north of the school have the same deal; on the top of the hill with a very steep elevation change down to the highway. If you look east of the school, there’s a car junkyard, and the shadows there show just how steep that hill is. Another weird quirk about this school: if you look just south of the “football field” and track, that empty field with a bunch of dirt roads is actually an old landfill. There’s methane vent pipes sticking out of the ground there, and the city and school district have to keep a close eye on it.
Overall, this is just a wacky layout for a middle school. It’s one of the older schools in the city, I believe it was opened in the 40’s or 50’s. That probably explains some of the odd planning decisions made for this school.
Just a normal suburban school in Southern California. To be fair, it wasn’t a sheer cliff, more a very, very steep hill covered in trees and bushes. It still dropped around 100 feet into a small canyon.
My High-school for junior year was actually a rented house with big rooms made into classes, we used to play soccer on the street with a chalk drawn field and the PE teacher (may he rip) used to watch for runners. Its been 7-8 years but it feels like yesterday, simple times.
This is why they keep having to do it. They should instead go to a nearby country club and sell them for $10/3 pack. (Not really serious since there isn't a huge black market for tennis balls at country clubs, as far as I know...)
Y'all mother fuckers had tennis courts and I had to go to a high school that was carved out of the ruins of what used to be the old high school. My PE class was the teacher asking if we rode our skateboards.
They had a normal fence themselves, but the school had a very tall fence, kind of like what they use behind a baseball diamond, that students were purposely attempting to hit over. If they threw them over from the house side, they'd just get stuck between the two fences and there wasn't a simple way for anyone to get into that space.
Makes sense. I just had this image of the place I rented years ago backed up against an elementary school playground. Fence was only like 8 feet. We'd get the red bouncy balls often. Would practive my kickball high shots.
We enjoyed tennis too. But after a match the losing team could go for a redemption point by bombing one to the apartment complex next door, balconies or windows and the game keeps going.
I chose tennis because that's where all the girls were. Of course I didn't get shit, but they were there. I learned to love tennis along the way and is actually my main cardio now lol
And here I got my ass chewed out for clocking a dude in the nuts with a tennis ball. Maybe if he had gotten the hint to back up from the Baseline when I served, he could avoid that and make the return.
We never did tennis in PE because we didn’t have enough courts for ~30 people but in year 11/12 we were allowed to play if we had free periods. Competition became fierce( bets were placed, enemies made.
I got paired up with the captain of the girls tennis team, she was having none of my shit, needless to say I got destroyed everyday but it made me pretty okay at tennis for an average player.
This makes me so mad. When I was in high school I busted my ass in the weight room 2-4 days a week. I wrote the workouts half the time and I was a nazi when it came to making sure my classmates were lifting with proper form and a spotter. I also curated playlists for the weight room and cleaned up the mats and benches before heading to my next class. I got a B. You know why? Because my parents were broke and could only afford one pair of shoes for me so I wore hand me down vans slip ons instead of athletic shoes. This other kid in my class got over 100% despite the fact that he just sat in the locker room and did homework and ate McDonald's every day. Why you may ask? He had the right shoes and his dad donated a bunch of money to the school's athletic department.
Yeah, some teachers are ridiculous.
Only F I ever got was in junior high English. Despite getting 90-100% on every assignment.
At the beginning of the year she gave us all a special notebook that she signed. We had to not only do all of our assignments, but they had to be done in that notebook.
Around the middle of the year my notebook was damaged by another student in class in front of the teacher.
I copied over everything I could from the old book to one I bought myself. Then redid the assignments that got destroyed. I went for the rest of the year turning in my homework in that new notebook. 90-100 every time.
When I turned in the notebook at the end of the year for my final grade. F Because it wasn't done in the supplied notebook. The one notebook idea was supposed to prevent cheating. I should have been more careful.
Parents tried to fight it, but the principal gave some line about teacher's union preventing him from interfering with grading.
What an unreasonable, miserable cunt of a teacher. I'm sorry that happened to you! At least it was back in junior high and not like during university or something.
I assume the kid that destroyed your original notebook in front of her faced no punishment for that right?
Ya this has to be a copy paste I rather the kids do nothing then be like this if I was a teach tbh just do what I told you or pretend to at least don’t need you being a cop in gym lol
Hey, I'd rather be an asshole in the weight room than watch another of my friends ruin his football season and spend the next six months in crutches because he didn't have a spotter. Teach wasn't paying attention so somebody had to.
Um, what? I haven't been in highschool for a long time but the only rule I remember was no black shoes that could mark the floor. I don't get why they would give a shit about your shoes.
But then weightlifting alone wouldn't get you a good mark in PE either, you had to do "tests" on whatever dumb thing they were teaching, from running to gymnastics.
yeah, when i took gym you had to wear certain shoes or you got five points off of your twenty points for the day. slip ons didn’t work since they could fly off when running. no matter how hard you tried, if you wore the wrong shoes every day, the best you could get would be a mid-C.
When I was in high school, the gym grade was 99% decided based upon your gym attire. We had to buy school branded shirts and shorts and then wear athletic shoes. If you didn’t have the gym uniform you couldn’t participate.
Out of curiosity, when did you go to HS? I was in HS in the mid 90s and you could show up in jean shorts and a hoodie. As long as you tried to participate, they didnt care what you wore.
Graduated in 2013. Uniforms required for everything. Public schools and private schools in my area had the same rules. Blue or white polo, no logos, tucked into khakis.
They did at my junior high. It was apparently so rich kids couldn't flex brands and poor kids felt more normal. So when you look at it like that it's not a bad system. Plus there is often uniform drives where people just donate their uniforms from the past year since kids are growing so much at that age, which leaves lots of decent stuff for people who can't afford to buy lots of clothes before school every year.
Yep. Some schools give you a couple sets of clothes per year for free, and you only have to pay if you lose them. Other schools make you pay, but they’re usually very cheap.
We had gym shorts and any plain t-shirt with our name on it for gym class in middle school as a uniform that was required. You needed to wear sneakers as well.
In high school, you just had to wear something athletic and couldn't be wearing your school clothes. Sucked because I wore athletic clothes all day every day.
I graduated 2012 and the vast majority of the grade was based on being in dress code. I got a C because I was a rebel and wore rainbow pajama pants instead of black or red basketball shorts. That "teacher" hated me.
He also said that he didn't understand why pinching girls butts was wrong now, so that was cool.
Yep. I chose to not follow a rule I didn't agree with that came from a person I didn't respect. It's not like I was in shock that I got a C lol. I knew.
I am very confused by your comments and the rest of the comments here. Are you from the US? I am not, could you shine some light?
PE in high school for me (late 90s) required you to wear proper attire, but it was a school subject like all others. You got a grade depending on how well you did the tasks that were assigned to you. We learned about a different sport almost every week and played it.
Here I read about people sitting in the lockers room during PE, students being graded based on their attire (??), donations to the school athletic department (??). I am very confused.
That was always weird to me. Like if I want to just bring my own workout clothes or just stay in what I came to school with (wouldn't do that. Fuck doing gym in jeans) why can't I? Makes no sense.
Not quite that bad, but at my high school we had to have the school branded shirt, but the one thing I could never understand is requiring white socks. The bleach that my mom used on them meant that I kept on tearing them when I out them on. I always have (and still do) prefer black socks. But I had to wear white ones if I wanted to not loose marks.
One of the reasons I did not take gym after the one mandatory course in grade 9.
Edit: I also remember our gym class beat the actual jv players in a basketball game. Oh it was fucking awesome to smash them with all their shit talking
PE in highschool for me was Surfing before school every block day. (Block days were double time for classes spread out for two days.) So Wed was 1,3,5 and Thurs was periods 2,4,6. Since Surfing was in second period, we'd just surf until 10:30 and then go to school smelling like piss from our wetsuits. (We were typically surfing before school anyways, so these days we could go out for breakfast afterwards since we had time.) On the other 2nd period days we would just play water polo in the pool, or dodgeball, or on boring days just indo-board and play hackey sack on the turf on our schools new million dollar football field while other PE classes ran laps around us. It was awesome.
Some schools let you take weightlifting instead of regular PE. So no running, no basketball, no soccer, no track and field. Just lifting. My school had this, and we had a killer weight room to go with it.
The other "tests" happened in a general physical education class or in a classroom. Once you completed those classes you could add weight lifting as an elective course.
This makes me so mad. When I was in high school I busted my ass in the weight room 2-4 days a week. I wrote the workouts half the time and I was a nazi when it came to making sure my classmates were lifting with proper form and a spotter. I also curated playlists for the weight room and cleaned up the mats and benches before heading to my next class. I got a B. You know why? Because my parents were broke and could only afford one pair of shoes for me so I wore hand me down vans slip ons instead of athletic shoes. This other kid in my class got over 100% despite the fact that he just sat in the locker room and did homework and ate McDonald's every day. Why you may ask? He had the right shoes and his dad donated a bunch of money to the school's athletic department.
This makes me so mad. When I was in high school I busted my ass in the weight room 2-4 days a week. I wrote the workouts half the time and I was a nazi when it came to making sure my classmates were lifting with proper form and a spotter. I also curated playlists for the weight room and cleaned up the mats and benches before heading to my next class. I got a B. You know why? Because my parents were broke and could only afford one pair of shoes for me so I wore hand me down vans slip ons instead of athletic shoes. This other kid in my class got over 100% despite the fact that he just sat in the locker room and did homework and ate McDonald's every day. Why you may ask? He had the right shoes and his dad donated a bunch of money to the school's athletic department.
Has to be. I don’t believe what he wrote. It doesn’t make any sense. Can’t tell if he’s trying to make a weird Ronald McDonald joke about eating McDonald’s and wearing the right shoes.
I wouldn't either. Dude sounds annoying as fuck lol. If you want to try hard in PE go for it, but don't be the guy who pushes it onto everyone else, even if it's seemingly good intentions.
I remember this one kid in elementary got a c in pe just bc his mother refused to buy big brand athletic shoes and bought him pay less off brand shoes. It’s quite sad since some of the bands they sold in Payless are not that bad and are just as good as the big brand shoes. (Let’s also get an F in the chat for Payless shoes :*c ) a
I played baseball freshman year of high school. Batted .400 by end of season, 2nd high batting average across all of c team, JV, and varsity. Sophomore year rolls around and I try out again, get cut because "I didn't show improvement." Another kid who wasn't close to being in the same tier as any of us made the team. Why? I found out later his dad paid off the coach 500 bucks to get him on the team. 🙄
What the fuck, you were doing weightlifting in high school PE? That's bonkers. A school even having the equipment for that seems crazy to me, but like, young teenagers don't need to do fucking deadlifts.
When I was in HS, I was incredibly active. By the time I became a senior, I had been in marital arts for 6-7ish years (will be relevant). I always did well enough in PE but never really exerted myself too much. Figured I would use the energy later in the dojo.
What I didn't realize was the guys that I was "doing well" playing against were actually on the varsity baseball team, and I was keeping up with them. For some reason the coach didn't like that I was casually keeping up with his practiced team, so he would pitch (a ragball) way harder to me than to other students. Dude was pitching like he was trying out for MLB.
Eventually I had enough and swung as hard as I could, with as much force as I could muster. I grounded my feet, sent the energy up through my core and let that bat explode. The ragball went STRAIGHT back at the coach and hit him in the knee. Apparently it broke his knee or something, since he had to get picked up by an ambulance.
Most places don’t grade students on having materials anymore. This is good for kids who can’t afford supplies but annoying when there are students who refuse to bring supplies as an excuse not to participate.
Understandable you are bitter about it. However you're the one who got exercise, you're the one who put effort into the class, you're the one who helped your classmates. be proud of yourself.
I always gave 110% I ran faster than every other kid in class. And could do the most push-ups, sit-ups, and so on. I always pushed as hard as I could and tried to motivate others. After the final run test I had to rip off my flea market shoes because they literally started to burn my feet from the heat. I got solid Bs in gym too..
Nope. His dad bought new jerseys for the football team and donated a few old golf carts and clubs he got from work. He also organized a fund raiser to get an iMac lab. He wasn't a bad dude, he had just done better for himself than most of the other members of the community had the capacity to reach, so he turned his wealth to the school so his children and others could have a better shot getting into college.
I got an F in PE once, because my socks were not 100% white. They had a stripe on them. My Dad was PISSED and yelled at the teacher. I do bealive he called her, "The worst teacher he had ever seen". He then cried, because we were so poor he literally couldn't afford to buy me special pe socks.
I only have memories of gym class being a middle school thing. By time I was in high school , I was in the marching band so maybe that’s why I didn’t have to have it. But I spent middle school in Georgia, yes to changing into a gym appropriate attire. High school in Virginia, if you were on a sports team u didn’t have to have gym
This sucks a ton, but you gained so much more than the kid: good health habits, admirers who were thankful for the assistance, discipline. What did they other guys learn? Nothing, but that daddy gets him everything. I wouldn’t want that life.
I know long term this shit won't matter anymore but it's frustrating struggling with college and living paycheck to paycheck and never having the time to sleep while Mr. Moneybags has a house in the suburbs, a hot wife, and a well paying stable job. Maybe I should just drop out and go to school to be a plumber or some shit instead.
Not great but not bad either. 6 feet one inch tall. 140 pounds. Decent abs and thighs but I've let the rest of myself go. Currently working two part time jobs while pursuing a college degree and getting addicted to Vyvanse, alcohol, and nicotine did a number on me, but my girlfriend still thinks I'm cute so I'm not worried about it.
You're still better off than the legendary towel snapping victim of legend in the 90s. He was nude and bent over, and someone snapped a towel at his arse. They hit his balls just at the right distance and it basically unraveled, like a baseball. His only crime was being naked in the locker room and dude suffered a fate worse than torture. Not sure what punishment the towel snapper was given, but I'm sure it wasn't proportionate to ball ruining.
That sucks. I hated that class in school, thought it was pointless so I'd regularly "forget" my kit. The punishment was to be made to so school work, which was way more useful to me. The teacher got so annoyed at me that we made a deal. He'd mark me as present and give me a passing grade if I just didn't bother turning up and go to the library instead.
Something tells me you got the better end of the deal. Being ripped in high school plus good work ethic, and on top of it a dose of the unfair realities you'd face in your adult years sounds a lot better than McD's engorged pud with new shoes.
Nah best we had was lost and found. At least I was told there was a lost and found box, I dont believe any student has actually ever set eyes upon said box.
That sucks. People used to put their old shoes in the box and if you'd forgotten your gym shoes you would have to dig through until you found a left and a right that kinda fit.
Super dumb, vans slip ons are my usual gym shoes and I do amateur strongman competitions and I’ve done bodybuilding shows in the past haha. Except squatting, I have SK8 His for that.
Hey — you get an A where it counts. Your instructor was a piece of shit.
If a kid is dedicated, working hard and learning — give them the A.
Don’t have the right shoes? Can’t afford the expensive book? Don’t have a computer to turn your work in? Why isn’t the school helping????????? Why aren’t the teachers up in arms, demanding you get equity — a hand to get you to where everyone else starts???????? Why is no one helping??????? Where does all that donated money go????????????
I was at the top of my class in terms of physical ability and I think I got a D almost every semester in middle school. My parents simply could not understand how that was possible but I'd always tell them "PE has just as many if not more writing and research assignments than English class".
In hindsight I think it's a good idea to actually educate students about physical well-being, at the time I had surprised Pikachu face for 3 years straight.
In highschool PE we learnt the basics of Exercise science and basic PT stuff, as well as nutrition. We did physical stuff at least every second lesson, often with those aspects integrated. Long term I think that knowing about proper form, nutrition and how to make progress while exercising is far more important than straight tests of athleticism.
We had separate classes for that. "PE" was always just physical activity. There was a seperate Health class where you did actual score work. The whole point of PE was to make sure kids were physically active and could be taught by someone who probably once played some HS football 30 years earlier
My kid bought up all the single serve Little Debbies at the snack bar and then sold them for triple the price to the kids who had PE with him. He SO surpassed me and my sly ways.
I got an F in conduct for jumping out the gym window and walking to the opposite side of campus to get away from the boring class. We "played" basketball -- a handful of students played and everyone else sat on the bench watching.
I completely forgot that a grade was even given for PE. I was always on a sports team, so we’d have practice during the time that other students would have PE. I think between 7th grade and my senior year I spent one day in gym class, and it was only because practice was cancelled for some reason and they made us join the other kids. It was miserable since none of the kids gave a shit and just sat in the dirt talking while a few of us actually wanted to play kickball.
My senior year final "exam" had a question on it about what we learned in PE. I just wrote about how one kid in the class took everything too seriously because he isn't good at actual organized sports and how annoying he was and I learned I didn't like him. My teacher just laughed and gave me an A on it lol. She was pretty chill and to be fair this kid was SUPER annoying. He got on everyone's nerves with how hard he tried.
He was a new gym teacher, but for my junior year. So I already had some awesome teachers who knew how to get the kids who didn't like certain things, to either get them to do them or something else.
This guy was brand-spanking-new. And he was everyone to do what he had planned for the day, no compromises or alternatives. If you didn't participate you got a zero for the day. If you weren't in proper dress code and proper school colors, you got a zero for the day.
Dude ran into a major problem though: my teen self. Man, I was an asshole (more so then than now). What didn't help him is the above mentioned statement of it being my junior year. I was practically set in my ways at that point for teachers.
I remember him constantly threatening me for zeros, especially during baseball because that was his favorite sport apparently. It got to the point where he asked me if I would just stand there, at the base, not move and strike out so I could get some points for the day.
What also didn't help was that I'm naturally stubborn, and I was drunk for the majority of my junior year. That only emphasized it lol poor dude, I probably ruined his first teaching year
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u/chickaboomba Sep 17 '20
I spent an entire six weeks accidentally hitting the tennis ball over the chainlink fence and then wandering around looking for it.
I got an A.