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Outside Magazine August 2001

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Better Shape Up (cont.)

MR. D WAS FACING us, arms akimbo, whistle and stopwatch around his bull neck. "President's Physical Fitness test," he barked. "Any you boys ever heard of it?"

We were two dozen stick-legged, winter-pale seventh-graders standing on the half-court line. We murmured.

"Speak up!"

"We're raising our children the same way we raise calves for veal," says one scientist. "Keep them in boxes, feed them too much, allow them no exercise."

You remember Mr. D, the junior high gym teacher. There was a time when we all had him. He was an American archetype: a red-faced, hoarse-voiced, no excuses, no-pain-no-gain drill sergeant. Teaching PE was just his day job, and he didn't suffer his students gladly. His main gig was being the football and/or basketball and/or baseball coach—and all other sports were for sissies.

We all knew the test. The names and scores of the school record holders in each category were posted on the gymnasium wall. We began shouting out exercises.

Mr. D cocked his shorn-to-the-skin head and cut us off. "Today we're doing sit-ups. Find a partner."

We were regimentally outfitted: school-issue gray gym trunks over jockstraps, reversible maroon/gray T-shirts, white socks, mud-stained canvas Chuck Taylors. We scrambled around one another like ants and paired up.

Rambunctious and eager, we understood the President's Physical Fitness test as a unique opportunity to escape the daily battle of murderball&3151;our name for dodgeball, that most gladiatorial of games, now widely scorned as politically incorrect.

"Spread out!" bellowed Mr. D. "One of you does sit-ups today, the other one does 'em tomorrow. You decide."

I despised football. I had made a fool of myself at baseball. I was a marginal basketball player. But as a wrestler I wasn't half bad, and through the sport I'd discovered a secret talent: I was good at sit-ups. I could do sit-ups all day, and I was bound and determined, as only an unsure, butterflies-in-the-gut 13-year-old boy can be, to prove it.

"I'll go," I said to my partner.

I eyed the record board. Sit-ups: V. Steinman: 1,233. I lay supine on the hardwood floor and my partner pressed down on my knees.

"Holders!" yelled Mr. D. "Only count the sit-ups that come all the way up. Ready!" He blew his whistle and clicked his stopwatch and we all started snapping up and down as fast as we could.

Minutes passed. Our jerky pace slackened to a steady rhythm. After about ten minutes Mr. D started berating the kids who had given up. After 20 minutes I realized there were only two of us still going.

After half an hour, Mr. D roared, "Stop!"

He went through his clipboard calling out names and writing down their numbers. He shouted my name last.

"Jenkins."

"1,589."

Mr. D glanced up at the record board.

"All right. Hit the showers."

When I got to the locker room I discovered the back of my shirt and shorts were soaked with blood along the ridge of my spine. But it was worth it. When you're young and green, even something as insignificant as sit-ups can instill pride. The next week my name and my record went up on the board. By then the eight-inch scab was already peeling off.

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