Gym class has never been much fun. I knew I wasn't going to become an athlete; the other kids knew I wasn't going to be an athlete, and the coach knew I wasn't going to be an athlete. With all this knowledge flying around, I still had to move the ball and get it moving in that direction, really fast. So I approached the ball, and made it move in a general direction, at a suitable speed, which was enough for me. I was always beaten. You know what I have problems with, gym propaganda. There are tons of them coming out of the mouths of teachers, coaches, celebrities, committees, activists, presidents, etc. They constantly say that sports help children develop self-esteem and live happier, healthier lives. Well, my question is: why are more than half the students in my gym class sitting with a depressed look on their faces? They watch the ball go by, scratch a little, look at the clock and watch the ball go the other way. If they don't enjoy athletics and don't even want to try, then give them another option. Instead of playing baseball, kids can watch “Pride of the Yankees.” Instead of playing hockey, there is air hockey. A good alternative to football would be table football. Why do aerobics when you could just watch Cindy Crawford do them for 45 minutes? Former coach Curko, there was a coach. He could tell who wanted to go to the gym and who didn't. He put every boy who could and wanted to play basketball all over the court. He put all of us boys who didn't really like gym together on a half court with a partially inflated relic of the Carter administration. So we talked about computers and politics, and at least tried to shoot a basket every now and then. Of course, every time we tried to shoot a basket, it would bounce off the bottom of the rim and end up all over the court. Then one of the bigger boys would kick us and yell something about our homosexual orientation. And the cycle would start again. Us boys in the half court had a lot of fun because there really wasn't a lot of pressure to do well..