The comedy routine of sports trials

One of the first things many secondary schools put their newbie sec 1 kids through are sports trials. These often take place during the first week of school or orientation, as the various sports attempt to identify and recruit potential players for the school teams.

The sports trials at Lesley-Anne's school were held last week and every sec 1 student had to undergo them. Basically, they had to try out at the sports stations to see if they would be shortlisted. The advantage is that you get to try out for a ton of different sports, many of which the kids probably would never have experienced before. The downside is that many of these kids, as I discovered, are decidedly unsporty and having to undergo one sports trial after another must be nothing short of torture.

Lesley-Anne was recounting what happened and it was just hilarious. Sports ranks lowly on her range of interests and it appears that she's not the only one. They had to shoot hoops for netball and basketball, do leaps for wushu, run sprints, do a long distance run, flip an opponent for judo, do catches for volleyball, among other tests. The kids huffed and puffed. They complained about how heavy the short putt ball was. For gym, they had to jump on a trampoline and many bounced awkwardly in circles before falling off.

The seniors would call out, "Who's interested in basketball?" *silence* "Who's keen on volleyball?" *crickets chirping* Finally they said in desperation, "You can't ALL be interested in the performing arts, right??"

When Lesley-Anne told me that she recorded one of the fastest times in her class for sprints, I figured her classmates were no Flo-Jos. Then I discovered she was even shortlisted for softball.

"Wah, maybe you got hidden talent! Did you hit the ball very well?"

"Err... the first time I hit the stand. The second time the ball bounced off."

I thought maybe it's just her school with the sports duds, until Elan shared similar stories of the sports trials in her son's school. According to her son, the standards for the trials fluctuated, ie as the coaches got more desperate, the standards got lower. By the time it came to her son's class which was the last one, he got selected for softball even though he didn't know what the sport was, as well as soccer even though he knocked down half the cones he was supposed to dribble around!

The wushu test initially was to squat with one leg in front and one extended behind, then jump up and kick until your leg is parallel to your cheek. By the time the last class did it, the test became: "see how high you can jump".

Thanks for allowing me to share, Elan. I laughed until my sides ached. No wonder schools nowadays are putting more focus on sports DSAs. If they had to rely on all these bookworms with two left feet, the schools ain't entering the Sports Hall of Fame anytime soon.