Me and my brother, back in the day.

There was an article in the Lifestyle section of the Wall Street Journal that captured my interest. It was written by Rich Cohen and called:

We Never Really Escape the Gym-Class Draft

Does the childhood fear of being picked last explain our insecurities later in life?

For some reason, I was always picked last or second to last in PE — whether it was Red Rover, dodgeball, volleyball or anything. How depressing is that? I am somewhat athletic. I started skiing at age two. I could swim. I took ballet. Yet, my school chums saw me as someone they didn’t want on their team. I think it was my thick glasses. I was terribly near-sighted from birth.

From the article:

It’s the sort of alienation you experience in junior high school but feel forever. Being just another number among a pool of available picks, you see yourself, maybe for the first time, through the cold eyes of an appraiser. You are no more than a body in the mind of this person, an object with too many deficiencies to catalog: chubby, knock-kneed, weak-armed, timid, poorly coordinated, scared of the ball, slow.

You will also feel yourself, for the first time, trapped in a body, isolated from even your closest friends, of whom you might think: Oh, dear lord, as bad as it gets, as long as it takes, let me be taken before him.

What’s worse, you know that you’re being judged on all the wrong qualities, in all the wrong ways. Yeah, I’m slow, you think as round three gives way to round four. I can’t throw very hard, and I don’t move too quick. But there’s one thing I know how to do well: kick ass at dodgeball.

Apparently, this picking by your peers is no longer allowed. Of course most things that make kids uncomfortable is no longer allowed.

When were you picked? Do you think they should still allowing choosing teams by peers? Why or why not?