Autism and sports

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I was always the worst member in a sport team at school, any team (ie.soccer ,basket,volley) and I never understood why , even most girls were much better than me , the sport sessions were like a nightmare to me and I always tried to find a way to avoid them during the 2 last years of school . The couch was used to yell at me or to pull his hair out because of my foolish play.

I always wondered about my failure in team sports and how some manage to learn fast even if they are noobs in a particular sport game and I could never understood why despite all my efforts and long practice I couldn't even manage to become at least good in the basics. This issue caused me a lot of depression during the schooldays and when I look back I understand that it was a major factor behind my actual low self-esteem.

Today I avoid all kind of sport activities, sometimes at work my coworkers ask me to join a soccer or basketball game but I always refuse or find an excuse . I accepted once to play soccer with them (which is far better than basketball) and sill...I was recognized the worst member in my team ...but wasn't a huge problem since the game wasn't so serious but was just for pure fun .

I don't really think this is related to my HFA since I heard about few autistics who are good in sports nor to my short height (5'3) because I know so many shorties who are really good in ball sports .

So why do you think I suck in sports?

Last edited by LePetitPrince on 18 Nov 2007, 3:36 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Autistics apparently ARE often bad in ball sports. I am! 8-( It isn't EVERYONE though, and even many of the worst can probably get better through practice, etc... In fact, the social component might be a good part of it.

Never cared for sports like baseball or football. I know that most of the neighborhood kids would get together to play football or baseball but I never did. I was pretty much on my own through Jr. High and High School. It sucks because if you were interested in science-oriented things you stood out as an oddball and got teased for it. I think people who are autistic can develop socially but I think they do it in a different way and at a different pace than NTs.

I only hang out with geeks or people who don't play sports and make friends with them. I didn't like sports much; it's probably also because the people who tried to bully or tease me were jocular, hated math (and I love math and did so much better than they did at it; they complained about math homework a lot), played sports all the time, and it made me associate jocks and sports with stupid people. They forced us to do this course called "PE" (which I really think should be renamed "Sports" because it's not really much of "Physical Education", if you think about it) and I think I did terribly at it because not only did I hate it, I was clumsy at it, and sometimes hit people by accident. It made people think I was aggressive when I was simply trying not to fail because I didn't want to do that course more than once.

Don't worry; I don't think all people who play sports are jocks anymore anyways, just some of them. I got out of that by realizing that rollerblading has more physics in it than some people make it out to be.

I was (or rather still am) notoriously poor at sports. School was a nightmare for me at school. Infact I did not even take an interest as a spectator. It does appear to be a fairly common trait amongst those on the spectrum, it may be due to the lack of fine motor skills required in most sports.

I've always been bad in soccer, or any other sport requiring coordination. I am good in sports that require strength, though...

Not me for sure, I can't doubt it I'm afraid I belong to that group to members of whom any practice can't help. What a pity that I never knew the word "dyspraxia" when I was still at school.

Other girls were always mocking me (boys too, anyway, but the group of boys had their P.E. lessons in another part of the sport hall). I hated them, then. It wasn't my fault, after all, even though I realize exquisitely well how funny I must have seemed to them when I was taking hopeless, futile attempts to make exercises properly. It was one day when I had already graduated from school when I met one girl whose class used to have P.E with us. She wasn't much better at sports than myself (mostly, I guess, because she was overweight). She told me then she didn't like girls from my class and added it's a relief not to be forced to spend time anymore with those... - here she broke off because she lacked an appropriate expression. "Those stupid whores" - I finished the sentence, instead of her. Anyway, I'm VERY glad I don't have to attend those stupid lessons now Everything they were able to give me is those malicious comments of stupid teens who didn't know more about the world than they had read in Bravo or other silly magazines for teenagers while they behaved as if they were princes of the universe .

I sucked at everything I touched when it came to sport. Cricket, rugby, soccer, even volleyball. Fortunately I went to a decent school where the sports masters cared about their subject (as did all of the other teachers). They kept on trying until they found a sport which I was good at, which in my case was long distance running.

By the end of my schooldays I was achieving some respectable times and running for my school. Other schoolkids who found difficulty with mainstream sports became table tennis players, weightlifters and even golfers.

Ed Almos

I think it doesn't help that most of the PE teachers in my school completely sucked. They didn't care if you weren't strong enough to run a particular number of laps; they graded everyone the same way, regardless of whether or not you could run as fast or as long as the best athletes in class, they weren't much help for people struggling to understand how to throw the ball faster, more accurately, etc. or whatever ways to help them improve playing the sport; they just had everyone in a group, make a small explanation about how to play the game, and then expect everyone to "get" it. Really stupid, in my opinion. Nothing about the science behind it, nothing about why it works, nothing about using strategies or using your head. Something that might really improve your game. If I had heard you could win that way, I might actually hate sports less. But instead, I ended up finding the physics in rollerblading more intriguing than watching kids chase a ball around mindlessly.

I'm also notoriously terrible at sports.

Some of them I can do better than others, but overall, I'd rather not play.

I was fortunate enough to have teachers who understood some students' problems with sport. We were given grades mostly for our participation in lessons not for real skills.

http://www.amidyslexic.com/Register.aspx

look at these bastards ....they want money in order to give u a stupid online quiz.

Last edited by LePetitPrince on 18 Nov 2007, 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Actually, some of my smarter NT friends and students faked it (or meant it; I wouldn't know) by saying they had a medical condition or weren't feeling well, and got to sit off or go home.

I sucked at sports growing up to start with but I was a big kid and so people wanted me to get practice around the neghboorhood so when games came up I was always getting better. After a while I became invaluable in baskettbell, wiffleball and football, mostly because of my speed and size (at that time).

Never liked PE in high school.

It was more due to the socialization than the lack of motor skills. Something like volleyball in a different setting would have been okay.