Price is a junior broadcast major and can be contacted at [email protected]

“Yes, Prof.”

I played a few sports as a young child, and I always had the same frustration during practice.

Why, when I had to run 12 miles, did my cross-country coach ride around in a golf cart and tell me how poor my running form was? “I know I look like a ‘constipated robot’ coach, but hey, at least I’m not sitting on a golf cart.”

Why in soccer practice did my coach just stand there and tell me my throw-ins made me look like I was “in the retirement league”? Where were his throw-ins?

Why did my tennis coach opt to correct my “demented backhand volleys”, and never touch a racquet herself?

You want to shout sometimes, “You get out here and do it coach!” But then again, you don’t want to run killers for your negative attitude. So you keep practicing, and you take it.

It seems to be the same with our Professors.

Sometimes I just wish our Professors would pick up a racquet, practice a throw-in or run twelve miles.

OSHA should practically mandate a warning for students’ on top of some of our syllabi. These Professors can be brutal.

Combine all our syllabi, and this full-time student thing doesn’t even give us a lunch break. Isn’t that against some labor law?

You read, write, multiply and do IPE hours diligently, always saying “Yes Professor” because you don’t want them to make you do more academic killers.

They train us to think critically, perceptively and analytically, and no matter how beautiful and eloquent we think that paper was, it always seems to come back with more red ink than black.

And worse, our parents aren’t here anymore with sliced oranges at midterms.

I’ve taught swim lessons the past five Summers now, and I remember when I went through them myself.

I remember being in American Red Cross Level 3 when 20 shallow bobs made me feel close to drowning. Wading water for more than a minute was pure torture. I cried after lessons to my Mom about that damn dolphin kick I couldn’t get down.

Now as a swim lesson teacher, I understand my coaches and the professors better.

First, I earned the right not to do dolphin kick anymore. I made it to teacher-status, and now you can bet I’m only going to demonstrate that horrendous Dolphin Kick for a few seconds and make the young ones repeat it for an hour.

Second, I got it down. If they listen to me, they can actually learn to swim. If they work hard, they can even swim with good form.

Third, the practice makes perfect. The more I make them do those activities they despise, the better they’ll become.

So, when the Professor assigns yet another paper, another demonstration, or another reading, I first let out the collective groan with the rest of the class.

Then all I can say is,

“Yes Coach.”