My first exposure with open showers came in the seventh grade in 1961, and the locker/shower facilities were part of a building which had seen little improvement since its construction forty years before; the showers were of the pull-chain variety in a bare-bones cinder-block dungeon tucked under the bleachers – with water that was usually no better than tepid.
I have a minor, but noticeable spinal deformity, was a “late-bloomer” where puberty was concened (didn't devlop any pubic hair until the summer between ninth and tenth grade), and to top it all off, was one of a handful of males who hadn't been circumcised – triple-whammy which, of course, drew the attention of all those losers who love to beat down anyone who's different; the same stuff that rolls downhill tends to stick together.
But upon entering “Senior High”, Mother Nature finally caught up with an overdue chore, and to make things easier to take, the building was only five years old with genuine hot showers that stayed on when the valve was opened. I never developed into too much of an athlete, but learning to swim as a freshman in college did, at least, provide the satisfaction of mastering a physical challenge, and gave me a “life sport”, and a reason to visit the gym and pool of my own free will.
And as for the thug-wannabees who made Phys Ed an ordeal in Junior High, a suprising number of them came to a bad end within a few years.