A member of my family had some interesting sporting experiences in his first few weeks at Dartmouth, including discovering that he was undoubtedly better not "doing boxing as an officer".....
When he satisfactorily finished the swimming part of the naval swimming test, in ovies and and a much longer distance than is required today, try as he might he could not complete the duck dive to pick up a brick off the bottom of the deep end. In exasperation, the supervising PTI (aka a Muscle Bo'sun) told him to try by diving off the side of the pool, which he did, only to hit his head on the bottom and come up with the brick but with his neck twisted to the left. Sent off to the sick bay, he was duly issued with a few painkillers and told to bugger off.
The next day he was back at the gym, this time for compulsory boxing , namely three one minute rounds against the next nearest in height, irrespective of weight or indeed reach, and carefully watched by all the divisional officers for signs of "lack of moral fibre" or "mutual non-aggression pacts", hence our hero decided he had to tough it out, dodgy neck notwithstanding.
To his credit, especially since his opponent from a distant continent outweighed him considerably, he lasted well into the third round before being floored. This time he came up with his neck twisted to the right and, having arrived back at the sick bay, was given some more painkillers, and severely admonished about not coming back unless the pain persisted if he wanted to avoid being becoming labelled as a "sick bay ranger" .
The pain did indeed persist and he returned to the sick bay and, because it was his third consecutive daily visit, was seen this time by the Principal Medical Officer, who quickly realised that something was seriously amiss. Long story short, after a long spell in hospital with a partially broken neck, he spent the rest of his life eagerly awaiting the annual increase to minimal benefits applicable to someone with only a few weeks' service.....
Curiously enough, he loved watching boxing on TV....
Jack