Share Your Gym Class Memories
January 13, 2011 at 8:59 pm Lori Shontz 6 comments
I don’t know much about this photo, which our graphic designer, Jessie Knuth, found in the University’s archives the other day. I can make an educated guess, though, that this woman got an A in bowling. Look at that focus!
We’re collecting our readers’ stories about gym class for an upcoming magazine article, and while it’s probably too much to hope for that the woman in this photo (circa 1943) will see this and write in with a story, I hope she will. I love long shots, and there’s got to be a story there!
We want your stories, too. Condense your phys-ed class memories to no more than 300 words and e-mail them to us at pennstater@psu.edu, fax them to 814-863-5690, or snail-mail them to The Penn Stater magazine, Hintz Family Alumni Center, University Park, PA 16802. We need them by Jan. 24.
Lori Shontz, senior editor
Entry filed under: The Penn Stater magazine, Undergraduate education. Tags: bowling, physical education.
Subscribe
1. R Thomas Berner | January 14, 2011 at 11:01 am
As a veteran, I didn’t have to take gym classes. The DAA at Hazleton made me take one semester of volleyball but when I got to UP wiser heads prevailed. I did have to take the swimming test, which was funny because I was a Navy veteran. We sailors know water.
2. Jane Lysinger | January 14, 2011 at 4:01 pm
I remember walking back to McElwain after swim class at night and my hair would freeze…no dryers at the pool!!
3. Sally Smith | January 15, 2011 at 3:21 pm
I did my gym credits by taking an outreach class called Backpacking in the White Mountains. It was easily one of the best classes I took while at Penn State. We had a few lectures in the spring, and then in mid-May we all met up at a hostel in Maine. We were dropped off on the side of the road (with our instructor, of course) and three days later came out of the woods at the base of Mount Washington. We did a day hike of Mount Washington and then kayaked and canoed our way back to Maine on the Androscoggin River. That trip taught me so much about leadership, limits and who I am as a person.
Class website: http://www.outreach.psu.edu/kines/the-whites/
4. John Rudolph | January 20, 2011 at 9:11 pm
To Sally Smith, The White Mountains & Mount Washington are in New Hampshire not Maine
5. Sally Smith | January 20, 2011 at 10:40 pm
Hi John,
Yes I know the White Mountains are in New Hampshire, my Penn State education taught me at least that much. :) We were dropped off on state route 113 on the border of Maine and New Hampshire and hiked to the West, so all of our hiking was done in New Hampshire. But we stayed at a hostel in Maine at the beginning and the end of the trip, since hostels are rather thin on the ground in the U.S. Then we kayaked and canoed from Gorham, NH back to Bethel, Maine along the Androscoggin river.
6. Andrea (Welsh) Hart | January 23, 2011 at 11:50 am
As a Math major at Behrend, I was required to take two phys. ed. classes. I chose weightlifting and golf, both were taught by Coach Niland. While weightlifting challenged my body, golf challenged my brain. Most of the golf class was spent learning how to use the pitching wedge. My husband jokes that learning how to use the driver would be a graduate class. I still golf a couple times a year, and I use that pitching wedge quite frequently, it is by far my favorite, most effective club.