FEATURE | GAMES
Written by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Feature Editor
To be clear, I don’t hate sports. It’s not my fault I have as much coordination as a giraffe in roller skates. As such, large portions of my school years were spent concocting creative ways to avoid the embarrassment of compulsory physical education. Depending on the school, and the teacher, I had varying degrees of success. It’s hard to describe the euphoria I felt when I accomplished my goal, possibly something close to what sports folk feel when scoring a goal, but I wouldn't know anything about that. It’s akin to waking up safely in your own bed after a terrible nightmare, or plans being cancelled when you didn’t want to go out anyway. When I failed, it was like turning up to school in your underwear and realising you have to give a speech you didn't write on a subject you haven’t studied and also you piss yourself in front of the whole school (and now Ryan will never ask you to the disco).
My first run-in with success was sports day, in year 6. I begrudgingly completed the sprint, but when it came time for the high jump and long jump, I noticed a group of kids sitting to the side who weren’t joining in. Kids with glasses or other disabilities that prevented them from being able to safely participate. I confidently sat down on the bench beside them. “Why can’t you do the jump?”, one girl asked me, “I usually wear glasses but I didn’t bring them today”, I replied. Nailed it. When the teacher asked why I wasn’t getting in line, my new short-sighted friend jumped to my defence, “She usually has glasses, but she’s not wearing them today.” Perfectly executed. I’m still chasing that high to this day.
In Year 7, I went to Titirangi Rudolf Steiner School. Steiner schools are kind of like your favourite hippy aunt who tries to heal intergenerational trauma by eating organically and attending silent yoga retreats instead of going to therapy. She’s still your favourite aunt, but you’re worried she might be in a cult. That year, we began training, I shit you not, for an ancient Greek style Olympics camp. We’d compete against other Steiner schools nationally in sports like javelin and discus throwing, running, and Greek wrestling, all while wearing togas with sashes we decorated ourselves in art class. They expected me, at the tender age of 13, on the cusp of discovering what it truly meant to feel embarrassment, to do a long jump, in a toga, in front of my crush? My ego had suffered enough for the weeks leading up to the camp, training in our school field. Preparation for Mission: No Way in Hell was simple. The week before we were scheduled to leave, I started getting a bit of a tummy ache. A few days before, the headache settles in. Subtlety is key, you don’t want to complain too much or you’ll be scheduled for a doctor's appointment. On the night before, a fake cry about how you “really wanted to go, but you can’t even get out of bed today”, seals the deal. I successfully avoided what could have been the worst humiliation of my life.
During high school, my parents recognised the mental anguish sports inflicted on me and consented to let me stay home on designated Sports Days. This didn’t relieve me of weekly P.E. classes, unfortunately. I had multiple tactics to worm my way out of this torture. Sucking up to the art teachers by asking them if they needed help with anything was a winner. Cleaning out paint buckets and sorting wool trumps getting my ass beat in dodgeball any day. But too many weeks of this in a row and the jig would be up. Going to the nurse's office with a fake migraine was also always on the table, but you have to sprinkle in a few migraines during other lessons so it doesn’t become suspicious.
In year 11, my 65-year-old English teacher took over P.E. This sweet elderly man, with over 40 years of teaching experience, did not have it in him to question how it was that I had “lady troubles” every. single. week. for an entire school year. I can’t really say what I’m more proud of, avoiding an entire term of volleyball, or taking advantage of the discomfort of this old man, unable to cope with a conversation about periods with a teenage girl. What was this innocent teacher to do, tell me I’m not on my period? He can’t prove that. No one wanted me to play sports anyway, I was a liability to any team I was on. I spent entire afternoons reading and catching up on school work, no harm no foul. It was a victimless crime.
Alas, my days of having to avoid P.E. are well and truly behind me. But even now, I still shudder at the thought of forced athletics. I’m aware that my avoidance has likely contributed to my lack of coordination and skill in ball-throwing and bat-waving, but much like calculus, in the 10 years since I left school, needing that skill hasn't come up once in my everyday life. There is some kind of tragedy in this tale, I’m certain that if I hadn’t been bullied for my lack of natural skill in sports, I wouldn’t have become so phobic of it. But then I wouldn’t have become a cringeworthy hipster art girl to cope with the shame of being bad at cricket.
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