If you're seriously thinking about college athletics, you're probably fairly talented. You've probably sacrificed a social life and sleep for the game and think you know a little bit about what it means to have a full schedule. As a graduating senior in college, I want you to know that you are most likely completely unprepared. I've never been to a military academy, but I venture that if you have, you might be almost prepared for the challenges you face as a college athlete. Almost.
College sport will consume you. Your coaches will own you and control you from the minute you step onto that campus to the day the clock winds down on your final game as a college athlete. If you're a free spirit prepare to feel stifled and stuck. You will have early mornings and long days and late nights. You will miss class upon class during your season and you will be too tired after travelling all day to write that paper for your economics class. You'll learn to either go to sleep four hours before your non-athlete peers or learn to run on four hours less sleep.
College sport will hurt. You will train for hours upon hours a day and then you'll go to class exhausted with ice clingwrapped to your knees. In college, you are a cog in a machine that is replaced every four years. You will be taught to ignore not only soreness but legitimate pain. You will play through sprains and stress fractures and maybe a concussion or two. Everything anyone has ever told you about taking care of your body will be sidelined.
College sport will make you feel inadequate. Day in, day out. You'll be yelled at virtually every day for four years of your life. You'll mess up or forget a play or sleep into an early mornings weight session. You will frustrate your teammates and your coaches and yourself. You won't be the best in the gym. You will learn to fail, over and over. And you'll be better for it.
College sport will give you some of the best times of your life. Your teammates will be your best friends, because they are going through the same things that you are. You will know them, inside and out. You will have their back and they will have yours. You will learn the true meaning of loyalty. You will lean on them after your coach has chewed you out or you've had a bad day or lost a big game.
College sport will help you grow. If you can hack it, you'll be better for it. You'll learn how to deal with people. You'll learn how to manage your time (sometimes the hard way). You'll meet boosters and fans and learn what it means to be somebody that someone looks up to. You will learn how to be a leader because, if you make it to your junior or senior year, you will remember what it feels like to be a freshman. You will learn how strong you are. You will push through a fitness session and you might shed a tear and not be able to move afterwards, but you will push through. And those skills will transfer into your life after college athletics.
College sport will leave a mark. You won't forget the times you spent in the gym at midnight or at 5am. You will remember how you felt after the upset game you won, if you played for 40 minutes or not at all. You will learn just how much you are capable of and how driven you are and even though college sport is the hardest thing you might ever experience, you will never, ever regret it.
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