P.E. Sports That Aren’t Really Sports, Although They May Be a Cousin to a Real Sport POWER RANKINGS…
1. Kickball – If anyone disputes kickball being in the number one slot, please stop reading my blog right now. In my mind, kickball is up there with basketball and football as the greatest American sports. Odds are you agree.
Ryan Conner Comedy Blog Flashback to 1991: I was in fifth grade and had the greatest kickball game of my life. I still remember it in great detail. I dominated. I had six homeruns in six attempts. With the game on the line in the last inning, the other team was kicking, with one out. A line drive was coming a few feet from me, when I made a flying catch like a goalkeeper. One out to go. Next kicker… he pops up… it’s going foul… no one can get to it… or can they… I sprinted and slid on my back into the bleachers and made the catch directly in the center of my chest. Game over. As we were leaving, I think a few people muttered, “I think Ryan may take this too seriously.” But that’s how you become a winner.
2. Flag Football – One would think that flag football would suck, but it doesn’t. It removes maybe the most appealing element of football, high impact, and it is still awesome. Sometimes it is harder to grab a flag off someone’s waist than it is to tackle. Case in point, they didn’t call me Slippery Hips Conner in high school for nothing.
3. German Dodgeball – This cousin of dodgeball, is its much hotter cousin… the one where you’re having Thanksgiving dinner with Dodgeball and her family, but you keep making the dinner awkward by looking at German Dodgeball too much and complimenting her on her much-improved rules and tight ass. I think we can all relate to that.
It was played on a full basketball court. I think different schools used different balls for this. We used hard, foam rugby balls, which I liked. 15 people were on each team. Everyone would start on the baselines, with 6 balls at half-court. When the whistle blew, people would scramble for the balls. If you got hit, you went behind your opponents’ baseline, where you were an active player. So, your team could sneak a pass to you and you could ambush the other team from behind. I’m tearing up thinking about it… Beautiful…
4. Four Square – If you’ve ever played Mario Party on GameCube, you’d agree that this is the Mario Party of P.E. games. It’s so fun, but if someone walks in and catches you playing it, you feel like you have to explain. And the explanation will most-likely start with, “It’s so gay, but it’s so fun…”
Has a game with so few rules and such a limited playing surface ever been so fun? I don’t think so. Bounce the ball… now you bounce the ball… now you bounce the ball. How is it fun? Know one knows, but it is. This game is so beloved that I got this email about Four Square from Danny Rouhier, only a month ago:
“King's rules. I usually play 'upward motion' and I almost always 'hotbox' a troublemaker or squeaky wheel. I also put 'barriers' and 'moats' on for the kings square but those only last 2 rounds so you have to be smart about when you use them.”
5. Crab Soccer – They probably shouldn’t even put soccer in the name of this game, because it isn’t at all related. Who thought of this? What is the point of getting in the “crab position”? Why not just play regular soccer? Then you’re playing a real sport and getting a workout. And who thought of the giant crab soccer ball? That will go down as one of the worst ideas in the history of sport.
6. Frisbee Golf – Golf is a great game, but I suck at it. Frisbee is a stupid activity, and I suck at it. I have only thrown a Frisbee straight, maybe 4 or 5 times in my life. The rest of them take on an almost boomerang pattern, which could be considered impressive if I was doing it on purpose.
Two negatives don’t make a positive in the world of P.E. They make a super negative. This game is fucking awful. What’s the point? Are we really getting physical rewards from throwing a Frisbee to a hula-hoop?
7. The Parachute Thing from Elementary School – This would be higher, but technically it isn’t a sport or a game of any kind. It’s actually a physics experiment. So, why do it in P.E.? Because parachutes don’t fit in classrooms, that’s why. That’s my only guess. And what’s the point of making us fake a tea party while under it? Way to rub in the fact that we aren’t playing kickball.
8. Anything Involving a Jump Rope – Are we really trying to make a sport out of a rope? Stop it. If I had kids, the fact they might one day have to go an entire P.E. class playing with a rope, would make me consider the pros of home-schooling. Pro Number 1: Kickball every day. Con Number 1: Kickball is always 1 v 1.
9. The Dance Unit – We had a dance unit in P.E. every year from 6th grade through 10th. Guess who refused to participate for five straight years? I took voluntary zeroes every year. The teachers would ask me why, and I would honestly tell them “it’s stupid and it’s a waste of time.” What does the electric slide have to do with anything in the world? Today in P.E., the home of kickball and dodgeball, we’re going to prepare you for awkward wedding receptions. I don’t like it.
10. Variations of Basketball that Aren’t Basketball – Nothing pissed me off more than going into the gym and seeing that the basketballs are out, then finding out that we won’t be playing basketball. Instead, we’re playing horse, or shooting free-throws, or doing something totally unrelated to basketball. It is remarkable and almost unbelievable that we could play a game that involves basketballs, a basketball court, and a backboard and rim, but doesn’t resemble a game of basketball in any way. We have all the elements of what is probably the second most popular sport in the world. Let’s just play it. Thinking about this is getting me frustrated. It’s the same thing as crab soccer. Why not play regular soccer?
Ryan Conner Comedy Blog Flashback to 1991: I was in fifth grade and had the greatest kickball game of my life. I still remember it in great detail. I dominated. I had six homeruns in six attempts. With the game on the line in the last inning, the other team was kicking, with one out. A line drive was coming a few feet from me, when I made a flying catch like a goalkeeper. One out to go. Next kicker… he pops up… it’s going foul… no one can get to it… or can they… I sprinted and slid on my back into the bleachers and made the catch directly in the center of my chest. Game over. As we were leaving, I think a few people muttered, “I think Ryan may take this too seriously.” But that’s how you become a winner.
2. Flag Football – One would think that flag football would suck, but it doesn’t. It removes maybe the most appealing element of football, high impact, and it is still awesome. Sometimes it is harder to grab a flag off someone’s waist than it is to tackle. Case in point, they didn’t call me Slippery Hips Conner in high school for nothing.
3. German Dodgeball – This cousin of dodgeball, is its much hotter cousin… the one where you’re having Thanksgiving dinner with Dodgeball and her family, but you keep making the dinner awkward by looking at German Dodgeball too much and complimenting her on her much-improved rules and tight ass. I think we can all relate to that.
It was played on a full basketball court. I think different schools used different balls for this. We used hard, foam rugby balls, which I liked. 15 people were on each team. Everyone would start on the baselines, with 6 balls at half-court. When the whistle blew, people would scramble for the balls. If you got hit, you went behind your opponents’ baseline, where you were an active player. So, your team could sneak a pass to you and you could ambush the other team from behind. I’m tearing up thinking about it… Beautiful…
4. Four Square – If you’ve ever played Mario Party on GameCube, you’d agree that this is the Mario Party of P.E. games. It’s so fun, but if someone walks in and catches you playing it, you feel like you have to explain. And the explanation will most-likely start with, “It’s so gay, but it’s so fun…”
Has a game with so few rules and such a limited playing surface ever been so fun? I don’t think so. Bounce the ball… now you bounce the ball… now you bounce the ball. How is it fun? Know one knows, but it is. This game is so beloved that I got this email about Four Square from Danny Rouhier, only a month ago:
“King's rules. I usually play 'upward motion' and I almost always 'hotbox' a troublemaker or squeaky wheel. I also put 'barriers' and 'moats' on for the kings square but those only last 2 rounds so you have to be smart about when you use them.”
5. Crab Soccer – They probably shouldn’t even put soccer in the name of this game, because it isn’t at all related. Who thought of this? What is the point of getting in the “crab position”? Why not just play regular soccer? Then you’re playing a real sport and getting a workout. And who thought of the giant crab soccer ball? That will go down as one of the worst ideas in the history of sport.
6. Frisbee Golf – Golf is a great game, but I suck at it. Frisbee is a stupid activity, and I suck at it. I have only thrown a Frisbee straight, maybe 4 or 5 times in my life. The rest of them take on an almost boomerang pattern, which could be considered impressive if I was doing it on purpose.
Two negatives don’t make a positive in the world of P.E. They make a super negative. This game is fucking awful. What’s the point? Are we really getting physical rewards from throwing a Frisbee to a hula-hoop?
7. The Parachute Thing from Elementary School – This would be higher, but technically it isn’t a sport or a game of any kind. It’s actually a physics experiment. So, why do it in P.E.? Because parachutes don’t fit in classrooms, that’s why. That’s my only guess. And what’s the point of making us fake a tea party while under it? Way to rub in the fact that we aren’t playing kickball.
8. Anything Involving a Jump Rope – Are we really trying to make a sport out of a rope? Stop it. If I had kids, the fact they might one day have to go an entire P.E. class playing with a rope, would make me consider the pros of home-schooling. Pro Number 1: Kickball every day. Con Number 1: Kickball is always 1 v 1.
9. The Dance Unit – We had a dance unit in P.E. every year from 6th grade through 10th. Guess who refused to participate for five straight years? I took voluntary zeroes every year. The teachers would ask me why, and I would honestly tell them “it’s stupid and it’s a waste of time.” What does the electric slide have to do with anything in the world? Today in P.E., the home of kickball and dodgeball, we’re going to prepare you for awkward wedding receptions. I don’t like it.
10. Variations of Basketball that Aren’t Basketball – Nothing pissed me off more than going into the gym and seeing that the basketballs are out, then finding out that we won’t be playing basketball. Instead, we’re playing horse, or shooting free-throws, or doing something totally unrelated to basketball. It is remarkable and almost unbelievable that we could play a game that involves basketballs, a basketball court, and a backboard and rim, but doesn’t resemble a game of basketball in any way. We have all the elements of what is probably the second most popular sport in the world. Let’s just play it. Thinking about this is getting me frustrated. It’s the same thing as crab soccer. Why not play regular soccer?
posted by ryanconnercomedy at 2:09 PM
3 Comments:
What about European Handball, Ultimate Frisbee, and Nukem(sp?)?
Funny how many of these "sports" are re-surfacing in coed adult leagues.
If you like Kickball so much I think we should get a bunch of people together and meet somewhere between Baltimore and DC and play a game. Then maybe some greek dodge. I'm not kidding. I did it a few years ago with some friends and it got wildly competitive. We added a rule where we could throw the ball at the runner to get him out. ...or was that always a rule?
In Ireland they play "Netball", which is basketball except you are not allowed to dribble. Also they only let girls play it.
I can only assume from Ultimate Frisbee not being on this list that it in fact is considered a "real" sport.
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