I am a varsity athlete. I, along with countless other athletes, can run, lift and play sports. I don’t need a class to teach me these skills. And yet I and all these other athletes are required to fulfill a half credit requirement in order to graduate with every other student.
I am not saying varsity athletes should be held above other students. Varsity athletes simply already have a good knowledge not just about their specific sport, but about sports in general. By playing sports, you learn sports.
Gym is required because schools want students to get in the habit of doing physical activities on a daily basis.
Athletes already do that. Athletes run and lift weights and play sports all on their own without anyone offering them class credit for it.
If the point of gym is for students to become physically active and get students to know how to keep themselves healthy and in good shape, don’t athletes already know how to do that? If so, they don’t need a class to teach them about exercising. They don’t need to be told to work out.
Another point of gym class is to give students a desire to continue physical activities throughout their life, therefore giving students the potential for a healthy lifestyle.
Athletes are likely to make sports and physical activity a lifetime habit just because they enjoy sports and working out and want to continue doing the things they love. Athletes like sports and will continue to participate in them long after high school.
Lastly, athletes should not be required to take gym classes because athletes more than meet the physical activity requirements. In one season, an athlete goes about two hours a day, six days a week, for a total of 12 hours a week.
In the approximate three months an athlete participates in a sport, that athlete has committed about 144 hours to athletics. In four years of participation, an athlete has around 576 hours of physical activity. That is 24 days straight of physical activity.
Compare that to a two week summer class that is six and a half hours a day, with a 30 minute lunch break or a one semester class where there is about 40 minutes of sports a day and 10 minutes of changing clothes.
So, since athletes already meet the physical requirements of a gym class, it should not be necessary for them to take the class. The athletes are already meeting the goals of the administrators without stepping foot inside a classroom or in this case, a gym. If they have met the requirements, why should they have to take the class?
Published September 2007. Digitized 2025.