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 The author as he appeared before completing a rigid course of high school calisthenics. |
P.E. classes in the 1950s
could whip you into shape
of TheColumnists.com
Would you believe
that boxing and wrestling were once part of a high school’s
physical education program?
Believe it, because that’s the way it was at Santa Cruz
(Calif.) High School in the Fifties. We did play the usual sporting
games in gym classes, too: flag football, basketball, softball
and tennis as well doing track and field events, such as the
100-yard dash, the low hurdles, the mile run (or jog, depending
on what kind of shape you were in), the long jump, high jump
and the shot put. We did tumbling, too, although very clumsily
for many of us.
Soccer was a game that only Europeans and South Americans played.
We played a game called “speedball,” kind of a combination
of football and soccer in which an offensive player could kick
the ball to a teammate (like soccer) or pick it up and run with
it but face being tackled by an opponent (like football but without
the protective padding and helmets). You scored two points for
kicking the ball through the goal posts but only one point for
running it across the goal line.
Can you imagine boxing and wrestling in today’s P.E. classes?
Can’t you just hear some parents whining to the school principal
about potential injuries to their son? Or some activist campaigning
that boxing was creating a class of warmongers? Or, at the very
least, a generation of bullies?
What I can imagine is that the lawyers today would be having
a field day suing school districts on behalf of parents for physical
injuries real or imagined and/or mental anguish, again real or
imagined, to their boys.
Although it’s just a two-year requirement in the Santa Cruz
district today, P.E. was a four-year requirement in the Fifties.* Just showing
up when attendance was taken didn’t earn you a passing grade
then. You had to participate unless you brought a doctor’s
excuse or were visibly ill. Even if you played on an interscholastic
team and practiced football, basketball or baseball two hours
or more after school, you still had to participate in daily gym
classes--except on game days.
Upon entering the gym, everyone “dressed down,” that
is, we put on our gym outfits of shorts and T-shirt or sweat
shirt and white socks and tennis shoes--always black shoes then.
(On the East Coast tennis shoes were called sneakers.) After
roll call, we took a turn around the track or made a few circuits
around the basketball court on rainy days, followed by some warm-up
calisthenics.
Participation didn’t assure an “A” grade, even
if you were the star of a varsity interscholastic team or were
the best boxer, wrestler, runner or team-sport player in school.
To rise above a “C,” you had to score high on a series
of physical education tests given each quarter: the 300-yard
run, pull-ups, sit-ups, the standing broad jump, the rope climb,
burpees and the frog stand.
The key to going all out in the 300 was to make sure you didn’t
have P.E. class after lunch. One year my P.E. class came right
after noon, and I lost my lunch on the wrestling mats just minutes
after running the 300.
Pull-ups and sit-ups are self-explanatory, but the other events
need a little explanation:
*
Standing Broad Jump: You stood with both feet planted on a rubber
mat and then leaped off both feet simultaneously as far forward
as you could. The best during my senior year was the center on
our varsity basketball team, who soared 9 feet, 6 inches.
*
Rope Climb: You shimmied up a thick, 20-foot rope hanging from
the gym rafters. Once at the top, you raised one hand and slapped
the beam to signal you had made it. We were timed on that one.
It was particularly difficult for a couple of the 250-pound tackles
on our varsity football team. One couldn’t tug his weight
to the top and burned skin all the way to the mat on the floor
in an unplanned, rapid descent.
*
Burpees: You started from a crouching position, with both hands
touching the floor and jumped vertically as high as possible,
landed on both feet, returned immediately to the crouching position,
touched the floor with both hands and then jumped upward again.
We had 20 seconds to complete as many jumps as possible. It wasn’t
easy on the knees.
*
Frog Stand: You squatted down on your haunches, learned forward
onto your hands that were on the floor, spread your elbows out
like wings and then put the part of your shins just below your
knees over your elbows and tilted forward. Your entire body was
subsequently lifted off the floor, except for your hands. It
required strength to hold the position for the required three
minutes but, more important, it demanded balance. We had a wrestler
who weighed about 112 pounds who could go into the frog stand
and stay in the position until class was over.
Jocks weren’t necessarily the best athletes when it came
to performing during the P.E. tests. As columnist guru Ron Miller,
who graduated two years after me, once said:
“I was never much good at team sports. In fact, when they
were choosing sides for a team, it usually came down to me and
some guy in a wheelchair as to who was going to be picked last.
But I was in better shape than anybody imagined. I excelled in
calisthenics. I could do the rope climb and touch the beam at
the roof of the gym in just four seconds, using only my arms
to climb. And I think I astonished many jocks in class by outlasting
all of them in the evil frog stand.”
 |
after months of burpees and multiple sessions of frog-standing. |
Although I played interscholastic sports (basketball and baseball), I was no standout during the quarterly tests--except for my junior year. I was a 5-10 stringbean weighing 140 pounds. But a few weeks before the boxing portion of P.E. began that year, I did some extra conditioning on my own.
I had good reason. The older brother of my high school sweetheart was in the same gym class. At the very least, I wanted to be able to protect myself from total demolition. Most of all, however, I wanted to prove myself worthy of dating his sister. He was 18 and I was 16. Where he had muscles, I had pillowy flesh. Nevertheless, I was sure the coaches were going to pit him against me in a boxing match.
But I lucked out. My girlfriend’s brother was matched against a defensive back on the varsity football team. The football player handled himself fairly well, although he was pummeled all three of their one-minute rounds. Then I got matched with the football player. The first round was so one-sided that I wasn’t sure there would be a second round. He was quicker and more powerful and his gloves were rapping my chin faster than a jackhammer drilling concrete.
Despite the fact that we wore headgear and boxing gloves that resembled cushions, getting whacked repeatedly in the face did hurt.
But early in round two, I got in a lucky punch. It wasn’t anything I did. It was his mistake. Coming in for the kill, he walked right into my right jab. He staggered, momentarily stunned, more from surprise, I suspect, than from the power of the punch. He warily finished that round, and his punches came less frequently thereafter.
I received an “A” that quarter, the only “A” I ever received in P.E. I managed to stay in the frog stand for the required three minutes, did 15 pull-ups, ran my best time in the 300, climbed the rope faster than ever before and did 50 sit-ups within the time allotted.
At the time, we didn’t appreciate that part of gym, but it sent us out into the world after graduation in the best shape of our lives. Few of us, unfortunately, continued such a regimen. A half-generation before mine, many World War II veterans from Santa Cruz made it a point to visit their former high school to thank their coaches for putting them through such intensive workouts, saying they were better prepared for the rigors of military training than most of their contemporaries.
There may be lots of reasons contributing to obesity in children and the increasing incidence of Type 2 diabetes in today’s youths, and the lack of required P.E. classes throughout high school could be one of them. When I was drafted into the Army at age 22, it was apparent that the 18-year-olds just out of high school were in much better shape during basic training than most of us older trainees.
So, we can blame the ills of today on fast food chains and vending machines, packaged foods and frozen foods, but maybe we should take a look at P.E. in today’s schools. If you reach adulthood still in shape, you might just want to continue the program on your own.
Oh, yes, one other thing. Most of us walked to school then, from kindergarten through high school.
* There was an out: Cadet Corps, the high school version of ROTC, which could be substituted for P.E. Can you imagine quasi-military training in today’s high schools? But that’s another story.
READ LEN'S REPORT ON THE HIGH SCHOOL CADET CORPS BY CLICKING HERE: CADET CORPS!
©2006 by Len Klempnauer. The illustrations
are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd.
East, San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506,
USA. This column first posted April 20,
2006.
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