Down with Team Sports!

My son, who is a freshman in high school, recently started taking P.E. Now, this would not be particularly significant, were it not for the fact that up until last year he attended a hippie progressive school that did not have P.E. classes, much less a P.E. teacher. With that background information out of the way, I can now recommence: my son, who is a freshman in high school, recently started taking P.E. He hates it. Finds it pointless. Boring. A source of irritation.

Is my son bookish? you may ask. Why yes, he is. He also plays endless hours of video games, reads a great deal, and finds science fun. But is he a couch potato? No! He is a green belt in some tae kwon do-type martial art that I can't pronounce, he can do flips both backwards and frontwards on the trampoline, and he can climb a twenty foot rope to the ceiling and descend it UPSIDE DOWN without breaking a sweat. But is he a jock? NO!

I, too, hated P.E. when I was a girl, and subsided grumpily into books and pudginess when I failed at it. I thought being athletic meant enjoying P.E., and P.E. meant team sports involving a ball, and I hated team sports involving a ball. Or, at least, I hated the version of them that involved larger, stronger girls yelling at me to get out of their way, grabbing the ball out of my hands, yelling at me to pass the ball to them, and yelling at me for missing the ball, dropping the ball, or failing to send the ball the required distance.

My son hates this, too. He is currently playing basketball in P.E., which I never thought was so bad, because at least in basketball you couldn't get elbowed out of the way (volleyball), slammed into full-body-style (flag football), kicked in the shins (soccer), or hit in soft parts of the anatomy at full force (dodgeball, softball AND soccer), But he made the point that the good players always hog the ball and yell at you for trying to make a basket or for not sending the ball over to them as quickly as they'd like, so the poor players never get good at playing because they never get to play.

This whole conundrum got me to thinking: why does America value team sports so highly? Why has being athletic become synonymous with playing a team sport well? Why do schools emphasize team sports so much? Supposedly, it's all this focus on teamwork and being a team player and team spirit, but it's really about glorifying the sports diva, and making those who aren't good at a sport feel small and unimportant. Am I overstating the case? Possibly. But it seems to me that those who praise team sports for promoting teamwork and cooperation have never actually watched a high school P.E. class.

So what's the solution to this problem? Obviously, to promote other sorts of athleticism in schools, such as running, swimming, fencing, gymnastics, parkour, yoga (yes, I say testily, I know that a lot of schools, including my son's, offer those classes) and cross-training. Not that I will have the remotest chance of implementing this solution, since America so loves its team sports. But that's the point of a blog, isn't it? To rant about stuff we can't really change, and hope someone else will notice it and maybe agree a little bit. Also, work off childhood traumas. You notice how cleverly I brought in that bit about the bigger girls shoving me out of their way?

Well, that's it for this rant. I promise I won't rant every time. Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day! I'm going to celebrate it by going to my yoga class and then out for a drink afterward with my friend Heather.