* This article does have some language I find inappropriate, but the message rings true and I believe it is an important one to spread.  Hope you enjoy and your feedback is always appreciated.

-Andrew

Here's the scene:

Twenty-five mostly overweight high school students are sitting on the floor of the school's cafeteria. They're dressed in gym clothes -- shorts, sleeveless shirts, sneakers. The lights are off and many are sleeping, using book bags as pillows. The rest are watching a movie playing on a "portable media center": a TV and DVD player on wheels.

What's going on in this scene? Can you guess? I'll tell you what's going on:

P.E. class.

I observed scenes like this almost every day during my stint as a high school teacher -- physical education classes where nothing physical or educational was going on. The students are usually graded on whether or not they dress out. So if a kid shows up and puts on a pair of shorts, he gets an A, even if he just sits there playing his Game Boy.

Why is this happening? Most of the time, the problem lies with the coach assigned to teach these classes. Remember, we're not talking about athletics here, but P.E., which is required by most states. P.E. is usually for those kids who don't go out for sports.

What usually happens is that an athletic coach is assigned to "teach" this class. Now, imagine being a guy who's dedicated his life to coaching sports and working with motivated athletes, but as part of your job as football coach or JV baseball coach, you also have to teach a P.E. class. The kids in P.E. hate sports. They're not athletes. In many cases, they detest competition, sweating, and any type of exercise, even things most kids think would be fun.

This would have to be a shitty, demoralizing class to teach for a coach. Still, I think you'll agree that parking them in front of the boob tube isn't a good option. In fact, it's a goddamn shame.

And let's not forget that good coaches are also motivators. They should be doing their best to get these kids off their butts. A good coach who truly likes working with young people -- even those young people who (gasp!) can't dribble a basketball or (horror!) can't catch a football -- can do it. I've seen it done. Heck, I've done it!

As with most education issues, I blame the administration more than the teachers and coaches. When most schools are given the directive of improving the health of their students, they simply add more diet drinks to the soda machines, replace the milk in the cafeteria with soy milk, and throw another "eat your veggies" DVD into the portable media center. (And remember, at one time at least, ketchup was deemed a vegetable by the educational system.)

And it's not just schools. Day care centers are failing as well. In many cases, the state effectively hamstrings them. Example: A new law in Texas requires day care providers to offer physical activities, but in that same package of regulations the state required that all day care centers remove climbing ropes, monkey bars, and just about every piece of playground equipment you can think of. Today's kids are inactive often because they're tied up with red tape and bumbling, brainless government officials.

In short, the village has failed. And that's understandable. Schools have other things to worry about after all. Too many people today expect the schools to do the parenting. The school districts, the state, and the federal government aren't responsible for educating your kids about the importance of health and fitness -- you are.

If your kids are fat and out of shape, you probably are too. You are their true teacher, and you do most of your educating when you don't even realize it. Your actions (or inactions) speak volumes.

Hillary Clinton wrote, "It takes a village to raise a child." Well, screw her and screw the village. It takes a parent. It takes a dad.

So while the politics of our children's education and health is always an interesting topic, I don't bother debating these issues much. I know that it's not the government's job. It's mine.

Don't plant your kids in front of the TV all day. Don't feed them crap just because it's cheap and convenient. Don't let them spend all summer playing sports video games; instead take the time to show them the actual sport. Enroll them in martial arts, gymnastics, or Little League. Hell, at least take them to the park.

In short, don't be a fat, lazy couch spud and your kids probably won't be either. If you can't handle that, don't have kids. If it's too late, do something while there's still time. You are the teacher. You are the coach. Get to work.

Those who float through the ether to find T-Nation are no doubt perplexed. They probably wonder where exactly they turned up, whether they mistakenly took Morpheus’ blue pill instead of the red pill.

Or maybe they ask themselves if this is the home base for some mad monk squadron of iron-worshipping iconoclasts, or whether T-Nation is populated by mad chemists who strive to alter their God-given physiology with alchemy. Or, yes, yes! This must be where Tyler Durden lives! The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club!

But that doesn’t seem exactly right, either. Damn it, is T-Nation animal, vegetable or freakin’ mineral!?!

Others simply make an instant mind-gut connection and think, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in...and I must be there."

So how, really, does one define T-Nation? Why even bother might be a better question because sometimes analysis or over analysis detracts from the magic of something; it’s somehow diminished when looked at under a high-powered microscope.

However, for those that are new to the site, and maybe for those that feel that every once in awhile a little analysis brings clarity, I’m going to try to capture in words that which is intertwined: the essence of T-Nation and the essence of man

Why are the two intertwined? Because the "T" in T-Nation stands for Testosterone. T-Nation bestows holy status on this hormone of hormones. We seek to elevate and maintain Testosterone levels in the high-normal range, because if Testosterone equates to manhood and manhood is good, why not be as good as we can be?

But there are those that don’t think much of Testosterone. They use terms like "Testosterone poisoning" when a man acts in an immoral way. We don’t pay much attention to those people because Testosterone in fact represents the heroic in man. Testosterone is James Bond, Dirty Harry, Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker and even that long-limbed beauty from Alias.

However, the whole concept of being an über-man in today’s society has elements of both irony and tragedy. High Testosterone individuals created society; they fought the wars, conquered the land, and built the skyscrapers. But the civilization they built has no use for them! High Testosterone gets men in trouble! High Testosterone scares the soccer moms and their rosy-cheeked children! These men are an anachronism, a wild beast roaming the countryside and as we all know, wild beasts don’t mix with society because they sometimes say things that will make your ears wilt. Hell, they might even mark their territory on the sofa leg!

With no real place in society and no battles to fight except for the occasional high-tech war that rarely involves much mano a mano combat, we try to focus our energies and raw animal passions into other pursuits, other battles. For many of us, that pursuit is training the body through weights. We get bigger and stronger in preparation for a battle that will probably never come.

Yes, we call it bodybuilding, but our type of bodybuilding has as much to do with prancing on a stage in bikini underwear as playing Flight Simulator on a PC has to do with flying a real F-16. Sure we appreciate the esthetics of a great body but when we build muscle, we want it to be functional, too. We want to be every bit as powerful as we look. We are not only show, but go.

While T-Nation writes unique articles that are pure bodybuilding, we also write unique articles about strength training, or power lifting, or Olympic lifting because not only do those activities contribute to muscle growth, they make muscle functional. T-Nation also writes often-amazing articles about how to maximize that muscle through nutrition or chemistry. If there’s ground to be broken, chances are T-Nation will break it months or years before anyone else.

Beyond the muscle-building aspects of Testosterone, we admire the psychological aspects of Testosterone. It is the ultimate recreational drug. It lets us enjoy life to the fullest. Nietzsche once wrote, "I am not a man; I am dynamite." Well, that’s what Testosterone makes us feel like. Testosterone is confidence, vitality, health and raw animal drive.

T-Nation is irreverent toward things that deserve irreverence and occasionally reverent to those things that deserve reverence. We are lusty, even bawdy. We are Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer with cut-off sleeves and plenty of muscle looking up Becky’s skirt as she climbs a tree. We love women. Maybe some of us are too in love with women. Maybe we feel that were it not for women, we could have been great men, but were it not for women we wouldn’t have wanted to be great men. It’s a conundrum, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

We abide by the law, but when the law is silly, we practice our own form of civil disobedience. We want to tell society to go ahead and live your safe little lives, but let those of us who have the courage to take our bodies to a new plane do what we...see...fit.

How best to describe us? Virtuous bad boys. We’ll help the old ladies cross the street and fight injustice when we see it, but we sure as hell don’t mind indulging in a little debauchery and a little decadence.

But beyond the physicality, the philosophy, and the intense sprit is the mind. T-Nation works as hard to build the mind as it does the body, for what is the body but a vehicle for the mind? And if you have a vehicle, it might as well be something ballsy with lots of horsepower.

Maybe these words by the Bard said it best:

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!

You tell ‘em, Hamlet. Never mind that he disparaged man in the next sentence, we like the original sentiment.

T-Nation represents all these things. It’s the library at Alexandria, the mystic on the mountain, the market place for magical hardcore "spices" that enhance the body and the mind, and when you see our symbol, our "tribal logo," we want it to serve as a reminder of everything we’ve said in this message, to send a synaptic bullet into your consciousness that reminds you of what you are–a man–and what you stand for.

So rage, rage against the universe, existence itself, your limitations, and the injustices of the world, but take solace that there are others like you here at T-Nation.

--this is the "mission statement" for one of my favorite websites, but I love what it says..............

www.t-nation.com