If being noncompetitive were a sport, here’s why she’d bring the gold metal home

I’m not a very competitive person and I don’t think it’s because I’m lazy. It’s more like I’m protective of my time and, perhaps, feelings. Plus I’ve always been a big fan of doing a labor benefit analysis in terms of effort expended and rewards reaped. Surprisingly this is something I’ve been doing since childhood.

I’m almost certain this a formula for justifying my lack of competitive zeal, was hatched in the ’70s. Anyone remember the Presidential Fitness Test? Well, it was a big freaking deal back in the day and made middle school physical education classes a living hell.

This is because in gym class you were forced to do a series of fitness tests, from the softball throw (which was put into the test, I kid you not, because it was a good measurement of how good you would be at throwing a grenade) to sit-ups and running. Lots of running.

Then the results of everyone’s fitness test was posted on poster-board in the entrance of the school with every student’s performance listed from best to worst. I’m going to give you a second to wonder where I landed on that list. Here’s a clue: It wasn’t anywhere near the top.

At first I was humiliated. Then, instead of deciding to work really hard to learn how to throw a softball farther than 5 feet and “run” a mile in under 20 minutes, I had another idea. I would put my energy into joining forces with the other cellar dwellers on the list to make the next round of physical fitness tests a little more, shall we say, fun.

In what I’m going to call my first attempt at community organizing, I recruited those not gifted in doing 100 sit-ups in under a minute (with legs straight, no bent knees) to join me in rebranding the test as less of an athletic competition and more of an excursion into other avenues of achievement.

For example, the mile “run” became who could do the best Monty Python “silly walk” and the softball throw was more of a dance move with a step ball chain and then the tossing of the ball while singing “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” from our school’s fall production of “My Fair Lady.”

Safe to say the PE teacher hated us, yet other students, in seeing the fun we were having, joined in. This rendering the test somewhat irrelevant.

I’m pleased to report that the “test” finally went belly up. Its slow slide to being benched started in 1976, the year after our merry band of middle-schoolers “reimagined” the test.

Coincidence? Most assuredly, but I believe that all over America, students were protesting in their own unique ways.

It’s not that as adolescents we were anti physical fitness. I was anti a gym teacher who was a bully and by today’s standards would probably be referred to as a psychopath. I was also against public shaming by posting the scores of the test. By all means highlight the athletic prowess of the kids who did great, but to list everyone was just cruel.

Years later, I don’t have any regrets for not being a super competitive person. Would I have been more successful? Probably. But I think my mental and physical health would have taken a hit. This is because in the game of life, being number one might just be a tad overrated.

Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs, on Twitter at @snarkynsuburbs on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and snarkyinthesuburbs.com.