A Very Special Blog Entry
Ninth-grade gym class was the bane of my existence. Throughout my middle-school and high-school experience, I was told over and over that my natural atheticism (or complete and utter lack thereof) didn't matter - grading was based on enthusiasm and sportsmanship. But gym had been okay in 7th and 8th grades because I felt like this was how it actually worked. Mrs. S. and I had our differences, and I certainly wasn't always the paragon of enthusiasm and sportsmanship, but if I tried, I was rewarded, and she understood that it took a lot more effort for me to pretend I was having a good time when I served the volleyball five feet short of the net for the tenth consecutive time than it would elsewhere in school - say, in the spelling bee.
My 9th grade gym teacher, though, was different. Mrs P. spouted the same party line that all the others had - good attitude counted more than being good at sports - but she sure didn't practice it, as far as I could tell. Day after day, I painted the grin on my face, cheered for my teammates, bounced through the folk-dancing steps with all the energy I could muster, crammed my head full of court dimensions and rules to ace the written tests...and I was still pulling in a solid B. If I didn't suddenly morph into Wonder Woman for the badminton unit, I'd be camped out in 3.8 land for the quarter.
I was optimistic, though, because we were playing a mixed-doubles tournament, which Mrs. P. thought would give a good introduction to seeding and tournament structure. She would pair us off and attempt to balance our ability levels to make the playing field a little more even. Obviously, this meant I'd be paired with a boy who could actually hit the birdie from time to time, and maybe he could make up for the fact that I hopelessly lacked hand-eye coordination. Maybe we'd win some games and place in the tournament. The top three were getting bonus points on their grades, I knew that much.
On the first day of the tournament, Mrs. P. sat us all down and read off the pairings. Sure enough, the stronger girls were being paired with the weaker boys, and vice versa. My name kept not getting called. I started to get worried as all of the better athletes were paired with people other than me. I didn't hear my name until she called out the very last pair on the list.
Jessica and...Laura?
Wait, wasn't this mixed doubles?
I looked around and noted that there were two more girls than boys. Okay, so that made some sense that one pair would be all female. But Laura? That made no sense at all.
Laura was in special education. I don't think anybody ever knew what exactly was wrong with her - there was nothing obvious beyond a vague simplicity to her language and a stocky, lumbering body - but she was different enough that we noticed something was not quite there. Despite a pretty good showing at the Special Olympics every year, Laura still couldn't compete with the rest of the class, athletically speaking, and, well, I wasn't much better. (In fact, I might have been worse.)
But I had no problems with Laura. We were going to get shut out on every single game, this much was evident, but at least she was nice.
Sure enough, our first day on the court, we were 0-3, although at least one of the games wasn't a total shut-out. Our losing streak continued for the next several days, until finally, convinced it was part of Mrs. P.'s secret conspiracy to wreck my GPA, I confronted her.
"You know I'm not very good at sports," I said. "I thought you wanted to make the teams evenly balanced. So why did you put me with Laura? We haven't won a single game yet. We're lucky to have scored points."
"It's not about you," Mrs. P. said. "It's more about Laura. You're one of the only people in the class who's ever nice to her. I wanted to make sure she was paired with someone who wouldn't get upset if she didn't play well."
It was flattering enough to shut me up - did I really come off as that nice? I had never been best friends with Laura, but I'd tried to avoid making fun of her. It made me a little sad to think that not going out of my way to mock her constituted being one of the nicer kids in the class. I think, looking back, that Mrs. P. might have been blowing a minimal amount of smoke up my ass on that one, but it did have the desired effect. I liked the idea that I was seen as nice, and I resolved to live up to it.
So I got back out on the court, and, armed with the knowledge that this really was an exercise in sportsmanship and attitude, I actually relaxed and had fun. Laura and I both started getting better at the game. We even had a couple of very close matches. When she was absent one day and I had to play with Billy B., whose partner was also absent, I found that I wasn't a huge embarrassment - I actually outscored Billy.
I'm pretty sure we placed last in the tournament, but it was a hell of a lot more fun than playing with any of the athletic boys would have been. Laura, being a generally sweet-tempered girl, never once commented on my playing except to tell me I shouldn't get angry at myself for missing a shot. And while I probably started out patronizing her a little bit, near the end, we were genuinely excited to root for each other whenever one of us scored a point.
Lest you think I'm getting totally glurgey and rose-colored-glasses-y, I will point out that I did ultimately wind up in last place with no bonus points in the tournament, a B for the semester, and renewed disgust for public school physical education and its GPA-wrecking message of brawn over brains, but for about three weeks, I felt like P.E. actually taught me something important. I'm giving half the credit to Mrs. P. on this one and the rest to Laura.
My 9th grade gym teacher, though, was different. Mrs P. spouted the same party line that all the others had - good attitude counted more than being good at sports - but she sure didn't practice it, as far as I could tell. Day after day, I painted the grin on my face, cheered for my teammates, bounced through the folk-dancing steps with all the energy I could muster, crammed my head full of court dimensions and rules to ace the written tests...and I was still pulling in a solid B. If I didn't suddenly morph into Wonder Woman for the badminton unit, I'd be camped out in 3.8 land for the quarter.
I was optimistic, though, because we were playing a mixed-doubles tournament, which Mrs. P. thought would give a good introduction to seeding and tournament structure. She would pair us off and attempt to balance our ability levels to make the playing field a little more even. Obviously, this meant I'd be paired with a boy who could actually hit the birdie from time to time, and maybe he could make up for the fact that I hopelessly lacked hand-eye coordination. Maybe we'd win some games and place in the tournament. The top three were getting bonus points on their grades, I knew that much.
On the first day of the tournament, Mrs. P. sat us all down and read off the pairings. Sure enough, the stronger girls were being paired with the weaker boys, and vice versa. My name kept not getting called. I started to get worried as all of the better athletes were paired with people other than me. I didn't hear my name until she called out the very last pair on the list.
Jessica and...Laura?
Wait, wasn't this mixed doubles?
I looked around and noted that there were two more girls than boys. Okay, so that made some sense that one pair would be all female. But Laura? That made no sense at all.
Laura was in special education. I don't think anybody ever knew what exactly was wrong with her - there was nothing obvious beyond a vague simplicity to her language and a stocky, lumbering body - but she was different enough that we noticed something was not quite there. Despite a pretty good showing at the Special Olympics every year, Laura still couldn't compete with the rest of the class, athletically speaking, and, well, I wasn't much better. (In fact, I might have been worse.)
But I had no problems with Laura. We were going to get shut out on every single game, this much was evident, but at least she was nice.
Sure enough, our first day on the court, we were 0-3, although at least one of the games wasn't a total shut-out. Our losing streak continued for the next several days, until finally, convinced it was part of Mrs. P.'s secret conspiracy to wreck my GPA, I confronted her.
"You know I'm not very good at sports," I said. "I thought you wanted to make the teams evenly balanced. So why did you put me with Laura? We haven't won a single game yet. We're lucky to have scored points."
"It's not about you," Mrs. P. said. "It's more about Laura. You're one of the only people in the class who's ever nice to her. I wanted to make sure she was paired with someone who wouldn't get upset if she didn't play well."
It was flattering enough to shut me up - did I really come off as that nice? I had never been best friends with Laura, but I'd tried to avoid making fun of her. It made me a little sad to think that not going out of my way to mock her constituted being one of the nicer kids in the class. I think, looking back, that Mrs. P. might have been blowing a minimal amount of smoke up my ass on that one, but it did have the desired effect. I liked the idea that I was seen as nice, and I resolved to live up to it.
So I got back out on the court, and, armed with the knowledge that this really was an exercise in sportsmanship and attitude, I actually relaxed and had fun. Laura and I both started getting better at the game. We even had a couple of very close matches. When she was absent one day and I had to play with Billy B., whose partner was also absent, I found that I wasn't a huge embarrassment - I actually outscored Billy.
I'm pretty sure we placed last in the tournament, but it was a hell of a lot more fun than playing with any of the athletic boys would have been. Laura, being a generally sweet-tempered girl, never once commented on my playing except to tell me I shouldn't get angry at myself for missing a shot. And while I probably started out patronizing her a little bit, near the end, we were genuinely excited to root for each other whenever one of us scored a point.
Lest you think I'm getting totally glurgey and rose-colored-glasses-y, I will point out that I did ultimately wind up in last place with no bonus points in the tournament, a B for the semester, and renewed disgust for public school physical education and its GPA-wrecking message of brawn over brains, but for about three weeks, I felt like P.E. actually taught me something important. I'm giving half the credit to Mrs. P. on this one and the rest to Laura.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home