Not Everyone’s a Star Player – and that’s okay

I don’t consider myself an athletic person. I wasn’t good at the sports everyone played in gym class. I was tall and had just enough muscle to be considered “strong”. However I could not for the life of me figure out how to play the games we played. It was frustrating, I mean how could I solve algebra but not catch a ball. Going against kids that play in clubs and outside school teams I felt like I stood no chance so I remained a tall awkward player.

I can name so many times that I beat myself over for not understanding those sports. People used to scream at me when I didn’t try and when I did they’d scream at me for not scoring. They treat a game in gym class like Lebron James himself is in the crowd scouting them out for the NBA.
I’ve heard people say gym class is a humiliation ritual and they wouldn’t be too far off. I’ve seen bigger girls endure the hate comments that roll off their back during gym. I’d hear the disgusting things the boys would say about their shape, their bodies being used for a good laugh. I’d hear the girls that always scream about girls standing for girls calling them pigs when they think their backs are turned. I’d sit with them on the bench, we didn’t always speak, just sat in silence. Their eyes often looked ready to be filled with tears.

Last year we were supposed to receive awards, one of them was a sportsmanship award. With that award hanging in the air everybody began to switch up. I was receiving good luck, and getting pats on the back. I didn’t know how to feel. On one hand I wasn’t getting screamed at anymore but on the other hand it made me wonder “so everyone knew exactly what they were doing?” They knew exactly how they made others feel but continued to do so because the thought of losing a sport was more important than the feeling of the people they hurt to get there. I was annoyed but it was better then.

At the end of the year there was a teacher vs student baseball competition and everyone was hyped for it. The rules were that every student in both grade eight classes had to participate. If a student chose not to, it would count as a point taken away from the student team so basically instead of starting at 0 they’d have to start at -1. With all honesty I really could not care, if anything it made me not wanna participate more. That’s such an evil way to make everyone participate, they know people will hate them if they don’t. I think in total we had 7 people including me who didn’t want to participate which meant we’d start at -7 points instead of 0. I sat out with the rest of the people not interested and that’s when everybody began to try to convince us to join “you only have to bat once” I still declined. I wasn’t interested in being screamed at again. When I told my teacher I wasn’t interested I was called selfish “your friends are counting on you.” It was strange they weren’t called selfish for making others cry or when they made others feel less than yet here I was supposed to drop all my time because winning a game against grown adults was important to them. Funny enough some people’s attitude got worse when they realised some of us weren’t participating and harassed us as if it would get us to do it. Someone had eventually convinced me to do it.

I’ve started a little mini storytime called “THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS” that will occur after the main article. If you have any stories that you may want to share or even just rant like the two stories below, please email me and I will dedicate an entire article or section for you to talk and rant about your problems and if you want I could give you advice! Please email me at akaezekossy5@abid-hussain

THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS

I have always been bad at sports, the only ones I’ve been good at and actually enjoyed are badminton and swimming. I’m especially bad at sports like basketball and football – ones where you have to run and stay very focused.

I’m also horrible at volleyball. But most of the time it’s cuz I never learned how to play those sports.

I was just thrown into the game. There were times when I would get yelled at by classmates, which sometimes led to me crying because they were very mad at me for not knowing how to play a game that I never learned. I’m also very afraid of playing with my classmates because they can be rough. I’ve known people who’ve gotten injured playing soccer during lunch because the kids in my school play like animals. I’ve been hit by soccer balls in the face multiple times, and all I get is a passing sorry If I’m going to play a sport willingly, I need to be playing it with people who are equally as bad at the sport as I am, because that way there is no judgement, if we make mistakes. I’ve built a very negative relationship with sports because of the people around me. All the yelling because I’m slow, or don’t know how to play. The constant fear of getting badly injured. I like swimming because I was taught it as basic survival, not really a sport. I’m not a competitive person, I don’t like competition, I don’t like losing. That’s why I stopped taking swimming classes despite still wanting to learn more, because I’m treated as though I have to train for the Olympics. I get tired easily, and there were multiple times I could’ve drowned because of how exhausted I was. Badminton isn’t treated as seriously as other sports, it’s just a sport we’re learning in PE. It’s usually either just me and someone else playing with each other, or a group of 4 people that are equally unserious about it and just playing because we find it fun. That’s the thing about sports – I don’t find sports fun because they are treated so seriously. You get insulted for not being able to do something. It’s a competition.

-Juno p.AL

Tbh I’ve never been good at sports, I kinda did soccer during pre Covid but I don’t know if that counts. I only would do goalie and I was like 5. Now I don’t do soccer anymore, only tikindo. And I’m forced to do that by my mother.

I think it is because I have flat feet but I always felt really bad because why couldn’t I really run? Like now I can run short sprints fastish but my feet/ankle start hurting or u start to get tired and slow down. Lol, it’s kinda been a joke among my friends that I can’t run very well. They don’t really understand and I don’t feel like telling them that it bugs me. The fact I can’t run for periods of time without getting tired makes me feel fat and I hate it. Also I find I tend to “stomp” when I run idk. Idk if running counts as a sport, it is track Ig?

This year in the gym we’ve been doing more variety of games so it’s not bad, but usually we do units like soccer for a while, volleyball, etc. It’s so annoying when the girls all want to play volleyball. It always breaks my nails (I like to grow my natural nails out and it’s just annoying), hurts my arm and I’m always apologising to the other players. It just sucks.

soccer isn’t much better, people are always crowding one area and even if I ever try to help them, I can’t, I’ll get the ball then it’ll go somewhere else and i’m not too bad a goalie, as long as its the small nets we use indoors. That’s about the size of my wingspan.

Usually it’s just the thing I have to do for a grade, and the boys usually are overkill. Some of these games, depending on the situation, could potentially be a bit of fun, but they are always too into it. like it’s just a game.

– theglitchzone

I just wanted to shed some light on the life of an unathletic person and the annoyances and problems that come with it. I hope you all enjoyed these two stories that were sent to me!