In retrospect, P.E. was a waste of time

I remember when Mr. Musser, our high school P.E. teacher, made us play American football. There was always an uproar any time he tried to get up to play anything other than football (soccer). The worst uproar came when we were required to do the physical fitness exam once a year. We would all complain every day for about a month while we prepared for the fitness test. But in retrospect it was probably good for us to do, and got us in shape, even if it only was for one month out of the year. Street Hockey didn't get much better of a reception, though I personally enjoyed it. It was one of the few sports we played that I wasn't too bad at, though that may have only been because most of the others didn't bother putting much of an effort into it. It was the other way around when it came to basketball. I hated basketball more than any other sport. For one thing, I was short growing up. I am still no gargantuan man, but at least I am about average. But as a kid I just got trampled by the tall guys.
The only thing worse than basketball during PE was basketball with a substitute teacher. All our PE subs were parents of students, in other words they were missionaries. You would think that missionaries would be chill sportsmen right? You would think that those who spread the gospel of Christ would be all loving, interested in camaraderie, equality and fun... basically Jesus wearing Air Jordans, right? Wrong. These guys were as competitive as they came and were not interested in shepherding a groovy game of ball, rather they got a kick out of scoring against 15 year olds. Most of them weren't doing it in a mean way, they were just competitive. They were all Baptists strangely enough, so maybe its cultural: "must win souls, must score points." There was one guy who was particularly a pain in the butt though, and he would even taunt you with things like "nice miss." It was like if he thought that we actually cared about the game. I mean, heck, we weren't a friggin high school or college basketball team that cared about improvement and winning. We were just killing time in PE and hopefully having some fun in the process. One time about 6 of us walked out of the game, and sat down somewhere until the end of class. I secretly think he was happy to see us go... bastard.

But Mr. Musser, our regular teacher, was a great guy. You couldn't ask for someone with a more positive outlook on life than him and I can honestly say that you always felt like Mr. Musser genuinely liked you. He was also a big fan of European football, so we played that most of the time. That was actually a positive thing for us. But when he wanted to play the American variety we were less than pleased. But he insisted. According to him, it was a part of our American heritage that we needed to know ("but we are Spain!" we protested). His reasoning was that when we went back to the US for college or otherwise, as most of us did to some extent, we would need to understand the game so that we could play it and watch it with the rest of society. In theory that would have been great. But all I remember from Mr. Musser's lessons is me in the center of a line of guys, hiking a ball back into someone's hands and then rushing the guy in front of me. It always struck me as funny that people would think of it as a manly sport... a bunch of guys in tights bent over in a line, with one guy with his hands on your butt as he waits to receive the ball, then everyone rolls around on the ground together and slaps each other's behinds in celebration. But I digress... I never really learned anything in those football lessons. I still don't really get it. I think Mr. Musser would have been better off letting us play the kind of football that one plays with his feet.