My tale today is about basketball.
In McLoud, there wasn’t really a PE class at the junior
high. The kids who didn’t play on sports teams got little organized exercise. However,
during the long lunch hour, students who were so inclined would toss a
football, play basketball, or just fool around.
As a substitute, I had a little more leeway than a regular
teacher, so I would sometimes take my students outside on nice days for a few
minutes at the end of a long 1½ hour class. Inevitably, the girls would sit on
the benches and picnic tables and the boys would grab a ball and play a pickup
game on the basketball court. Gentle encouragement to get the girls to
participate fell on deaf ears, so I figured to lead by example and joined the
games myself. So there I was, a mediocre-at-best ball player, playing rough and
tumble pickup games with a bunch of teenage guys. I managed to hold my own,
earning their grudging respect, but not one of the girls ever joined in. And
let me tell you, those well-fed Oklahoma girls could have sure used the
exercise.
Fast forward to the Oklahoma City junior high where I taught
full-time the next year. My students invited me to join the after-lunch
shenanigans on the basketball court. Only this time, the court was filled with black
girls playing horse, and they absolutely put me to shame. I couldn’t
begin to mimic the amazing shots they pulled off. Afterwards, they shook their
heads sadly and said “Miz Mongold, you’re real nice, but you’re a terrible
basketball player.” I couldn’t disagree.
What it is about places like Oklahoma, where white girls are
socialized to be completely sedentary by the age of 13? Considering that 34% of
Oklahoma adults are obese and almost 10,000 Oklahomans died of heart
disease in 2014, it seems that this is a thing worth trying to change.
