Picking Teams

I've been having an e-mail discussion about sports- or lack of interest in them- with a guy who also has no interest in them. He brought up something in his last e-mail I'd forgotten about: Picking teams in P.E. class. He went on to write about how he wasn't very good in sports and thus would always be among the last picked for the team. That was very upsetting to him.

Remember how that went? The coach/ instructor would pick two guys in the class to be team captains. Those two captains would then each take turns picking who they wanted to be on their team. It sure sucked if you were among the last to be picked.

I'd like to think I was at least of average ability in school sports, yet I recall at least a couple times being the last one picked for a team. I wasn't always picked last, but I was at least a couple times and I couldn't understand that. Why pick the little wimp standing next to me instead of me??? That hurt, as I'm sure it hurt any of the thousands of kids that were picked last, especially if it happened all the time. Do they still do it that way?

I do care about people's feelings. I'm not one of those sensitivity types that thinks kids in sports should never lose or anything like that, but there's something to be said about hurting a kid's feelings when he's doing nothing but standing there waiting to be picked for a team.

I seem to remember some coaches just taking the whole class and dividing it into teams themselves by just splitting a line down the middle. That seems a much better idea to me with no harm done in the end.

Addendum: Was looking to find a picture to add to this post and found there's all kinds of interest in the issue of picking teams for school sports.