When reading articles about being a college athlete everyone talks about how it is so worth it and how they wouldn't trade it for the world. Call it the unpopular opinion, but it was so not worth it. I did trade it, not for the world, but I did trade it. I traded it for traveling abroad, a better education, and a life outside of the sport I have played since 4th grade. Maybe it was me not being ready for what college athletics required. Maybe it was the new environment. Maybe it was just the entire thing. Don't get me wrong, though, there were many positive experiences that happened right alongside the not so positive experiences.

I got memories that will last a lifetime. Teammates on a college team are connected like no other team I had played for in my entire life. You think, in high school, that you and your club teammates are as close as it gets. In college, you spend so much more time with these people than you could ever imagine. You wake up early to go to lift, then to breakfast, then see each other again for lunch, then for practice, and finally for dinner. Dinner would only be last time you saw them if there weren't any extra team commitments that day. My freshman class was as close as you could get. We all lived together and did essentially everything together. I will never forget these people or the team my freshman year of college.

On the other side of the team life came to the personal issues. I struggled with conditioning. Have I ever been the fastest person on the team? Never. Have I ever expected to be the fastest on the team? Absolutely not. It's not my strength. This had never been a problem before I got to college. I understood that I needed to be in better shape than I ever was before. I can honestly say that I was in the best shape of my life during my freshman year of college. And yet, it was never good enough. I was never working hard enough in the eyes of my coaches. I had to run conditioning tests repeatedly and repeatedly failed those tests. I didn't realize it at the time, but this gave me actual anxiety about conditioning. I did not learn of this newly developed fear until I got to my new school. I had a spot on the team at the school I transferred into, but I had such anxiety that I ended up taking the fall season off. I sat in my new coaches office explaining how I needed to quit because I couldn't do it. She tried to explain to me that this was not my last school, but I couldn't get past it. I couldn't get past the thoughts that I was going to bring the team down because I was not in good enough shape. I felt a pit in my stomach even thinking about having to run sprints. I felt sick thinking that I wouldn't make the times for the sprints. I have never had anxiety in my entire life and I was freaking out every day leading up to the first practice. I have been lucky enough to land at my new school where my coach was understanding and compassionate as I sat in her office in tears about upcoming practices.

I learned that coaches have the power to make or break a team or an individual. Everyone has had a bad coach. There is no way to avoid it. During the recruiting process, I was so excited to have the opportunity to essentially choose my lacrosse coach for the next four years. During middle school and high school, you don't get to choose what program you play for. You either get lucky with a phenomenal coach or you just aren't so lucky. However, it's more than luck in college. You get to know the coach through the recruiting process, or so I thought. I've never had a coach that stormed off the field in the middle of a practice because the team wasn't playing at their best. I've never had a coach that screamed at a team about how shitty they are one minute and the next minute ask why they aren't in a good mood. I've never had a coach that left team tailgates as quickly as they could. I'd never had a coach like this before college. I was astounded. This was not the coach I wanted to play for. You cannot expect to have players who want to play for you if you are a coach that does things like that. It did not motivate me. It only made me feel confused and constantly questioning what that day's practice was going to be like.

I hit my tipping point halfway through the spring season. I broke down crying on the phone to my mom. She told me that it was not normal to feel the way I was feeling. I actually needed someone to tell me that it wasn't normal. I decided to transfer to somewhere else before my love of lacrosse was gone. Once I got to my new school I thought everything would get better. I did not think that one year in a program could follow me to such an extent. I know I still love lacrosse, but I don't know if I still love playing it.