Hey All,

First and foremost, you should know that this is a “thank you” letter. You guys were my rock for 4 years and not a day goes by that I don’t think about how lucky I was to have the opportunity to work with you. You provided me stability during times of uncertainty, sanctuary during turmoil and you blessed me with people who have shaped me forever and whom I will not soon forget. I gained so much from my time with you, be it hundreds of free t-shirts or the ability to work with a team, and I cannot thank you enough for that.

To cross country, you taught me what it meant to persevere. When I started working with you I was terrible. My 5K time was over 30 minutes. I was constantly battling shin splints and during the early years of high school, my weight kept me from being the athlete I could have been. I almost quit trying with you. I even took a year off, and almost didn’t come back my senior year. But you and the people you surrounded me with, the coaches you gave to me; you guys never let me quit. And I thank you for that valuable life lesson. By my senior year, I was running a 20 minute 5K, leaving the sport both physically and mentally stronger than I was when I began.

To Basketball, you taught me what it means to love something enough to let it go. From the moment I could play rec sports you had my heart. Not only did you come relatively easy to me, but I was the best at you for a very long time. Thank you for the countless summer evenings of shooting in my driveway, trying to make my 10,000 shots. Thank you for the many team trips to various colleges for camps, and the weekends spent at tournaments playing three to four games a day. Tiring, though it was, there was no other way I would have wanted to spend my weekends. Thank you for the 5 months you gave me every year to spend with an incredible group of girls, and thank you for the life-altering coaches and mentors you gave to me. Thank you for teaching me the true meaning of time management. For those 5 months out of every year, most of my days started at 6:00 AM and ended at 1:00 or 2:00 AM. You taught me to work hard and get my sh*t together at all costs, and that has certainly helped me in college, so I thank you for that. I’m sad that one too many ankle injuries ultimately led me down a different path for a future in collegiate athletics, but I know that one day we will be together again. One day I will make another little girl fall in love with you just as deeply as I did.

To volleyball, thank you for teaching me what a team ISN’T supposed to look like and that I am not a volleyball player (hahaha). You showed me how a few negative attitudes can be cancerous to a team, and that teams really are like a clock, and can’t work properly if every person doesn’t know their role and perform it correctly. You taught me that though I may be blessed with several different athletic abilities, I am not blessed with the ability to jump straight up in the air, and for the record, I think I hit the net more times than I hit the ball. But nonetheless, I am still grateful for the opportunities I got to work with you, because every mistake is a lesson learned, so I certainly learned many lessons by trying you out!

To track, thank you for teaching me that “it’s never too late to be what you might have been” (George Eliot). I didn’t take up work with you until my senior year and I am so sorry. I regret that 110 percent. There was not a meet in the season during which I didn’t improve, and that was truly empowering and awesome to be a part of. You also taught me that good things come to those who wait, because from the get-go I told those coaches I wanted to sprint and they finally put me in the 4X100 in the last meet… which also happened to be the State Qualifying Meet (no pressure). But really, thank you for teaching me that you don’t have to be “built for something” to be good or have fun at it. I never tried you out because I didn’t think you were for me. I certainly do not look like a runner upon first glance, but I sure felt like one by the end of the season. So thank you for forcing me outside of my comfort zone and introducing me to a world I otherwise would not have known existed.

And finally, last but certainly not least, to my dear friend Soccer. I can always count on you to be there when I need you, and I even followed you to college. The best friendships I’ve ever had I made through you. You are a 45-minute drive to Saturday games that I hated at the time but wouldn’t trade for anything in the world now. You are smelly feet that make my shoes stink, make my bag stink, and make my mom’s entire Volvo Station Wagon stink and cause us to have to roll down the window the entire way home. For a long time, I denied how much I loved you. But the most valuable things I have learned about life, I learned from you. You taught me patience. Be it through rain delays, waiting for the perfect ball to score the perfect goal, or just waiting to break through a drought and get a win after what seemed like never-ending losses. You taught me that tough times don’t last, but tough teams, and tough PEOPLE do. You taught me that no one is greater than the team. In soccer, each team gets 11 players on the field. That’s 22 on the field at one time. One player on one team cannot win the game. The most valuable lesson I learned from you, however, is that no one is perfect, and practice doesn’t make you perfect, but it makes you better. In soccer there are endless mistakes. It’s a blessing that we don’t keep track of turnovers, because if it were anything like basketball we’d be running sprints for hours. But it’s the way you recover from those mistakes that counts, not the fact of making them or not. Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

While I may have more skilled experiences with some of you than others, it has truly been a blessing to have all of you in my life. I wouldn’t be who I am today if I weren’t an athlete. You have taught me the importance of discipline, patience, strength, teamwork, perseverance, time management, toughness, sportsmanship, and friendship, so thank you. Thank you for all the early morning practices, getting back late after road trips, the smelly shoes, the taped ankles, the BROKEN ankles, the pulled muscles, the ice baths, the sweet wins, the bitter losses, the amazing friendships, and all the memories. Thank you, all of you: Thank you for all of it.

Always yours,

Maggie