I was you. I was you before every Sunday travel ball practice. I was you while lacing my ankle braces up before that dreaded Friday practice when I just wanted to get out and go to the football game to support my friends. I know exactly how you feel right now, but, one day you will miss it.

I know you are counting down the minutes every water break you get, and it feels like time has never been slower, but don't rush it. When people say these are the best days of your life, they mean it. I loved the competition and the actual games, time for those could never come quick enough. I loved the teammates I made and the best friends I got from it. But all of that comes to an end quicker than you're ever ready for. You may say to yourself and to your teammates "Thank God practice is over" but give it a year from when you put the ball down for the last time, you will wish that you were getting ready to dread practices for another season.

It might not be the last match you realize it. It might not even be in that same year that you start to miss it, but it will come. It will come when you least expect it, when you see your best friends going to their last tryouts and they are dreading it and you would do anything to be back there for one more practice.

You always think you're gonna have it forever. It never hits that it goes away until it's gone, and if you really loved it, you will miss those dreaded practices. You will miss those extra laps you had to run for not hustling because you didn't feel like it. You're gonna miss it all.