Freshmen and sophomores dread it. Juniors and seniors are relieved to be done with it. Physical education is one of the most exasperating classes that Paly requires its students to take.

We all know that it is not a difficult class to complete. All you have to do is show up, maybe run (or even walk) a few laps around the track and then play some nonchalant games of badminton. For the real athletes, it’s an insult to their athletic abilities. To the not-so-athletic students, it is just the place that we all have to go and put on those disgusting uniforms.

Even in ancient times, physical fitness was a characteristic of survival. Ancient societies such as Greece, Rome and China all had a physical fitness program for military training. From 700 to 600 B.C., the Greeks in Athens strived for physical perfection by competing in the Olympics. Over 2500 years later, the United States started initiating physical fitness programs. However, it was not until 1975 that the United States House of Representatives voted to require schools to have a mandatory physical education class for both genders.

Some students are able to avoid the class completely. They are fortunate enough to earn prep periods. You’ve all heard of the lucky few who do not need to go to that irritating class. Those students who do a Paly sport after school, or are enrolled in dance, are excused from P.E. The process of getting this privilege is easier said than done, and it is not that easy to explain.

Now it may sound like these athletes are getting a cushy deal, but there is a long and tedious process that the athlete must go through before they are excused.

First, the athlete must go through tryouts for the team, which may last as long as three weeks. For this entire time, the athlete must attend both P.E. and tryouts. After the athlete makes the team (he or she may not. In that case, they are laughed all the way back to the locker rooms for at least a trimester of P.E.), they are not added onto the roster until they have turned in their physical and sports boosters form.

It is a hassle to get those physical forms. You have to set an appointment at the doctor’s office and then walk the painstakingly long trek across the Paly campus to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Then, you have to get a physical exam, which is always awkward.

Why do athletes even need a physical? Athletes supposedly are the most robust students at the school, and we obviously displayed our athletic competence in the three weeks of rigorous tryouts. Yet, they still need to walk into the reception room, wait 20 minutes, and then finally go into the room where the nurse asks you a couple questions. Then they leave, you wait another ten minutes and then the doctor comes in. He tells you to breath in and out, weighs you, and tells you that you are in tip-top shape. Who would have thought.
After that’s finally done, you need to beg your parents to write a check for 150 dollars to the Paly Sports Boosters.

After all of this, the athlete is considered on the roster. But, in no way does this mean that they are allowed out of P.E. No, they haven’t suffered enough at all. After that, the coach must turn in the roster to the P.E. teachers. Now this is the part of the process that usually infuriates most students. It seems like there is always a computer failure, a lack of communication, a lack of paper, or just a down right lack of effort.

Nothing feels worse than hearing from your coach that you are excused, waiting eagerly overnight for your first day P.E.-free, then finally going to P.E. and finding out that your teacher does not have the roster so he cannot excuse you. The P.E. teachers always seem to have forgotten the roster in their office or just don’t feel like checking. That means either a lot of pestering to get the coach to get the roster or another day of waiting.

But finally, after some persistence, the coach lets the athlete go. It is a relieving feeling, yet then they realize that three weeks out of their eight-week season has gone by.

Overall, the process of getting a prep is tiring and barely worth it. But, good luck to all of you freshmen and sophomores who are striving for that prep period, I know the feeling.