I've been playing volleyball pretty much year-round since the fifth grade. Making it to the college level was always the dream. Now that I'm here playing in Division III, I sometimes catch myself asking why I even bother (especially when I have to wake up at 6 a.m. for conditioning). So to all the girls struggling to get out of bed and go to the gym (me included), here's a reminder of why we do what we do:

1. Family

OK, this is cheesy, but there is nothing quite like the bond you share with the people you spend hours running, jumping, sweating, winning, losing, and growing with. Through sports we get to meet people we would otherwise never have known and create a new family. It's not a clique or a club; you don't get in for any particular characteristic except working hard for the team.

The Wesleyan Volleyball fam 2015:

2. Play Like a Girl

This one is a double-edged sword: we fight gender stereotypes all the damn time. Especially in volleyball – one charming slogan I've often heard is "Come for the spandex, stay for the game" – we are written off as a joke. There are plenty of guys my team could easily take down. Then again, we go to conditioning sessions for all the varsity athletes and the boys are at the front of the pack. But you know what? That's just fine.

Goals:

With the exception of some very hardcore leading female athletes, most women in sports will not reach the physical strength of their male counterparts. Unfortunately, biological sex is very real. We have estrogen, they have testosterone. Do you know what's in the steroids athletes push to get artificially stronger? Testosterone. Biologically, male athletes naturally come with more of that, so yes, they can run faster and lift more than me. I can live with that.

What I can't live with is the entitled BS that comes out of this biological difference. When we go to those conditioning sessions we are working our asses off. We might not be running as fast as the guys, but for the most part we are pushing ourselves just as hard. We show up and work next to the guys despite cramps, knee/hip problems (which are very common for female athletes due to skeletal differences between sexes), a lack of testosterone, and all the gendered mocking thrown our way.

If golf is considered a sport, it's about damn time y'all stopped shaming strong female athletes.

3. Pride

My body can do some awesome things. It can sprint, it can jump (not quite as high anymore, sorry coach), it can win games, it can learn microbiology, it can cook great Chinese food, etc. A hard workout or practice reminds me that my body can accomplish more important things than a size on a tag or a number on a scale.

Athletics has given me a community of women who care more about accomplishing a goal than what we look like while doing it. I don't mean to blame women who spend a lot of time worrying about appearance. I still do and I know it's not because we're shallow or silly. Entire industries, governments, and societies profit off of women hating ourselves, so of course we still get insecure.

Just remember, when you roll into class looking like hell and smelling sweaty, it's because you and your body are doing great things. That's pretty rad.