As I was born with a bad back, I was unable to participate in school sports and was in a lot of pain a good deal of time.  My father, an oral surgeon, took me to the various specialists who worked on back problems, and they all recommended I should have my vertebrae fused in the lower portion of my back.

This was in the mid 1940’s.  My father felt that this could lead to even more complications, and so I lived with the pain during my freshman through junior years of high school at Punahou in Honolulu.

It was not much fun.  As I was unable to play football, baseball or run in the track meets during my junior year I was the manager of the football team.  My duties consisted of cleaning up the locker room after the football games and watching the hero players get leis and a lot of attention from the lovely ladies in our class after the games.   Then I would catch the bus and go home – all alone.

One day, I got kicked out of class because the pain in my back hurt so I could not sit still.  It caused me to squirm a lot.  This annoyed my teacher so much that after several warnings about sitting still, she finally was so irritated she sent me down to see the school Principal. While in his office, he and I discussed my back pains and he told me that his physiotherapist had helped him a great deal with his back problems and suggested I should go see her.

Well, that afternoon after school, I took his advice and went to her office just down the hall from my father’s office so it was easy to find.  When I got to see her, she took one look at me and said that my posture was awful, my shoulders too broad and my waist too small.  She then told me that I would have to build up the muscles in my back by doing a number of specific exercises she showed me in a booklet she gave me.

I took her advice and did those exercises daily.  Then after a few months, I happened to walk by the baseball team as they were practicing and after watching them perform, I went over to the coach and asked him if I could try to hit the ball during their batting practice.  He laughed and told me to go give it a try and hit the ball.   I did. So well, in fact, he put me on the team -the first team I was able to be on in school.

A short time later, there was a school track meet and as my back pains were no longer bothering me, I signed up to run sprints.  I did that quite well–in my baseball shoes!–and won the 100 yard dash.

Then as I started my senior year, my back no longer caused me much pain.  I wore a strong waist brace and did my exercises regularly.  As a consequence, I decided to try out for the football team.  I made the team and did so well I was offered scholarships from all over the country.

Those scholarships put me through a year at Menlo College where I was the only non-marine on the football starting line-up and we won the California Jr. College Championships.  From there I went to the University of Washington for 3 years before returning home and playing one more year of ball for the University of Hawaii where I set a rushing record of 277 yards and 4 touchdowns in one game against BYU, which has stood for many years.

This was all made possible by my being kicked out of class and being steered to a physiotherapist who cured me without any major surgery.  Moral of the story:  getting kicked out of class can sometimes change life for the better.  Thank you, Miss Annis.

Peter–Hawaii

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