Third grade gym class was the ultimate nightmare for a nine year old female who constantly had her face in a book. It was an unspeakable horror to be asked to run five laps and God forbid Coach Ashby ask us to perform push-ups.
The day I remember best started out as a complete wreck. It was frisbee day.
Let it be known that I cannot catch a frisbee to save my life. I'm great at throwing them; but unfortunately, that wasn't the task of the day. It was catching.
It required coordination, which as most people know, I was not blessed with an excessive amount of.
Or, at all, really.
It was simple, really. You caught the frisbee on your turn, or you ran five laps. If everyone in the class caught the frisbee (which put an unbelievable amount of pressure on me not to be the only one to screw it up) we could then play dodgeball for the rest of class.
I accepted my fate before I even ran out to try to catch the stupid thing.
I, along with every other person in the class but one, missed the frisbee.
Looking back, I think it was the dumbest thing he ever had us do. Maybe the dumbest thing I've ever done in my entire existence as a human being. Who in the world cares if I can catch a frisbee? Please, someone explain to me how that's going to help me in the grand scheme of things.
The only kid in my class who caught the frisbee was Ryan. No one was shocked, Ryan was the most athletic person in my grade, by far.
That day in gym after everyone had had their turn, Coach Ashby turned to Ryan.
He told him he a choice.
Either he would sit out the five laps like he was promised
OR
He could run laps for the rest of us while we played dodgeball.
(At this point I was screwed either way- dodgeball was just as bad, if not worse, than running- but that's beside the point)
Ryan looked at the twelve of so of us.
And he said, "I'll run."
And while for years I thought that was the most unfair question to be put on a 9 year old kid, I finally realized that whether or not he meant to, our Coach taught us something really valuable that day.
That is the only day of gym class I can distinctly remember.
And it's because it was more than gym class that day.
It was about who we were as people.
What I took from that day wasn't the fact that I still couldn't catch a frisbee.
It was redemption.
~Juliana True
