senior day

If we win tomorrow, we are basically in as far as the play-offs go.

Need I say more?

It is senior day. I am walking in between a line of my teammates with my mom and dad on either side of me, onto a field which I have bled, sweated, and teared on to play possibly my last home game ever. Cacoons are hatched in my stomach just thinking about this game.

And of course I had stick problems today at practice.

I got a call my freshmen year while I was at home, visiting for a weekend after being at school about 3 weeks. Seems a couple of guys on my team thought it was a good idea to wear swim trunks and the letters I-S-A-B-E-L-L-A painted on their chest, in honor of the hurricane that was set to hit on that Friday night. A photographer snapped their picture, and it was on the front page of the sports section of The Baltimore Sun. Of course they were enjoying malt beverages at this time and looking like they were having the time of their lives. The call I recieved was to inform me that we had practice at 5:30 am monday morning. I was driven back just in time to see my teammates walking out of the dorms in the twilight of the morning, going towards the field. With no sleep, I went and did 500 push ups and 500 sit ups with the rest of my team. Every morning for a week straight we did this (plus 7:00 am study hall, class, actual practice, homework, and life in general). I was practically filling out my tranfer letter at this point.

A list of numbers of games, of shots, of practices, of pity parties, of confidence boosters, of broken sticks, of bruises, of early mornings, of offensive cooridinators, of bad losses and big wins, of I-dont-deserve-to-be-playing-here’s to I-can’t-be-stopped (both true and false from moment to moment) mentalities, of every night of partying I watched other people going towards while I went to the field to shoot, of hours upon hours spent on walls just throwing and throwing, of failures and more failures and a glimpse of hope to failure and frustration to a chance to here…

I mean honestly, this may all be so very melodramatic and over kill and romantasized but this is the fulfillment of almost every dream I have had up untill this point. It just is. As tragic as it is, my identity has been tied up in sports my entire life, and this sport and this team in these past 4 years, that to see it come to this point is almost debilitating. My best friends asked me what I was going to do when I graduate, like basically the question of “what do I want to be when I grow up,” and my mouth moved on a direct impulse from my unrestricted brain (which often gets me into trouble) and I said….

“All I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a college athlete”

Seriously, from as far back as I can remember, this was the dream. Why I do not know? Our culture maybe? Success at sports from a young age? The people I was around? One way or another, getting to where I am now is the culmination of the ambitions of my youth. After this I am lost. Free to dream again, but lost for the moment.

After this.

I still have this game, and this season left. This game tomorrow most importantly though. Honestly, I am going to attack Hobart every chance I get. We are going to go right at these cats and stay coming, stay aggressive, and stay swinging at their chins. There are no other games for me as of right now. You know that mantra “play every game like its your last”? Well guess what… that game is approaching in these next 2 months for this greyhound.

All I can really say though is that I am looking forward to playing, to having fun, to trusting my teammates, and to battling another team with all I’ve got. I am going to do everything I do tomorrow with confidence. I talked to Coach Lantzy today and he said something that really struck a chord with me. He said “there are only two things you can control: your attitude, and your effort.” I see truth in that. Regardless, after having a couple below par games as an individual and as a team at times, I am ready for all of us to play well. It is a new season for us now, and it is time to set the tone for whats to come. Now we do how we do.

Peace