The girls in my class hated it, the boys in my class could not wait for it.  Some of the activies we did (for a grade) are not even allowed anymore.  The feel and smell of that maroon rubbery kickball is nostalgic, almost magical. 

My gym teacher was a good man.  His name was Dick Williams.  Mr. Williams was a nice guy, the head basketball coach for years, and a phys ed teacher any boy would love to have, and any girl would wish against getting.  What made Mr. Williams’ gym class so interesting was that he looked for athleticism in his students.  No matter what the activity was, two people were asigned to be captains and then they would pick teams.  The same people were picked in almost the same order no matter what the activity was. 

Without further ado, my top and bottom 5 gym class activities:

T O P

1. Dodgeball.  We have seen the movie but it does no justice to the real game.  In 1983, my sophomore year, you were encouraged to throw the rubber kickballs at your opponents no matter where you hit the person.  If you got hit really hard, it would sting for a bit, but everyone lived.  Unfortunately, the game is now taught with Nerf balls that float and you can only hit people in the legs.
2. Kickball.  Indoor kickball rocked!  The rules seemed to change every single time we played.  If you hit the ceiling you were out.  Again, the maroon rubber ball was used and you could nail the runner at any body part to record an out. 
3. Basketball.  Seemed like every Friday, Mr. Williams would come out with a basketball and we would pick three teams and just play full-court pickup games to 11.  The co-ed factor slowed the games a bit, but we knew what we would be doing every Friday.
4. Whiffle Ball.  Another sport replaced with nerf balls.  Same as kickball, the ground rules varied from game to game.  The bleachers were an out, The far wall was a home run, the ceiling was an out.  We even used to be able to throw whiffle balls at girls to record outs.  “So Jeanne, are you going to come with me to the sweethearts dance? Oh, I didn’t know you had a date…”  POW, Jeanne gets drilled in the thigh as she tries to get to first.  It was deviance with permission at its absolute best.
5. Artillery.  This was a variation of dodgeball using up to seven kickballs at the same time.  This was the best way to make the nerd who ruined the curve in Algebra cry.  Three guys would hold a ball and decide he was the target.  All at once, three kickballs going at least 40 MPH would drill the little genius.  Curve ruiner would almost always end up in tears.  Needless to say, this game is history.

W O R S T

1. Square Dancing.  I was never the dancing type and to this day am not a huge country music fan.  I don’t drive a truck, I have all my teeth, and I do not drink, hence no country music.  Even though this activity would only last a couple of consecutive days, I despised it.  I hated dancing like I just killed a deer and left the bar with his bloody antlers in my hands.
2. Normal Gymnastics.  There were the vaults over a pommel horse, the balance beam, and my all-time most hated activity, tumbling.  I was pretty big in high school.  At about 6′, 240, the last thing I wanted to do was a cartwheel in front of the cheerleaders in my gym class. 
3. Scooter Races.  Again, as a big guy in high school I had to swallow my pride to sit on a one foot wooden square with wheels under it and race around like a hamster.  This could easily be number one on the worst list, but I did ok with it.  I think Mr. Williams would have these races from time to time just so he could say the class was well-balanced.
4. Running.  Shocked me the day when I came out of the locker room dressed in my gym clothes to learn we were going to go outside and run up a hill.  I faked every illness in the Red Cross handbook, but Mr. Williams made me anyway.  This was a way for the skinny geeky kids and track stars to excel and left the door open for basketball and dodgeball for us normal folks.
5. Volleyball.  To this day I hate playing this sport.  All the guys wanted to be on the front line to spike the ball toward the other team, ala dodgeball.  Unfortunately we learned that the only people who were any good were the girls from the volleyball team.

The one sport I still enjoy is golf.  We never did much golf training in gym class.  Mr. Williams is still a very avid golfer, so I am suprised it would never come up.

All-in-all gym class was usually a pretty good time.  I miss it and maybe when we have our 25th reunion, I will see if I can locate a maroon rubbery kickball and see who wants to go out in the parking lot to have at it.

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