This past Thursday, my college softball team played its last game of the season, as we honored the seniors in their last game as YU Maccabees. After the game, in addition to common refrains like “Heck no, we won’t go!” and promises to never leave the WhatsApp group and scheduling an Alumnae game for the upcoming Fall season, pictures were taken, captioned with “It's the end of an era.”
This phrase was also yelled into the outfield. But as a sophomore rookie on the team, I couldn't quite relate to this declaration. What does it mean to end an era? For me, my college career was just beginning, in addition to my college athletics career which will (hopefully) endure for at least two more years.
First, I thought, the “ending era” could be in reference to the two last remaining team members who had been a part of the original team (the softball team only started four years ago at YU). But then I realized that the other seven seniors, who had only joined the team at various points later on, were also tearing up over the era’s end.
But as I watched the seniors huddling on second base and rolling around in center field, I realized that for them it truly was the end of something significant in their lives. The realization gave me some perspective and taught me to really live in the moment and appreciate what I have the opportunity to experience for the next couple of years.
You may ask, what was this realization? I realized that throughout conventional life, you are always working towards something. Every stage of schooling is about getting to the next level of your education. And once you get to college or graduate school, you're working towards getting a job and making a living or living out your dream. And once you have a job, you're working to be as successful as you can at that job.
Building a family is different, in that you're not always looking to the future and to build but in a sense you are. You want to be able to provide your kids with the best and raise them to be confident, impactful and good people; you are looking towards the future. But when it comes to Division 3 college sports, things are a little different.
As a child, playing sports is treated as pure, unadulterated fun. That first time you pick up a bat, no one cares if you hit a home run or even connect with the ball. Just gripping the bat is exciting, and that sense of swinging the bat with all your might for the first time is accompanied by pure pride. But that first time you connect with the ball, even if it’s a dribbler straight to first, the sense of euphoria that fills your entire being is indescribable, yet palpable to everyone observing.
Once you start playing sports on official teams, whether in a community league or a school team, you start feeling the pressure to perform well. Whether it’s to put up stats or to be a starter or to receive an athletic scholarship, the pressure is there. But in the back of your mind, you know that there is always going to be serious athletic competition at the next level. Until you're in college, that is.
Unless you plan on going pro, which is not a very statistically realistic plan, college is basically where it ends. Your years on a college team are most likely the last years you get playing seriously. I think that's what it meant when the seniors on my team declared it to be “the end of an era” after their last game. It was their last time having the ability to be a part of team, playing softball in a real way. But when you go to a Division 3 school and you don't have a scholarship riding on your athletic performance, and admissions aren't counting on you to bring enrollment levels up, you get to go back to the feeling you had when you first picked up a bat and connected with the ball all those years ago. You get to just have fun.
To experience the game as it was intended, under the bright glow of the floodlights, everyone focused on the movement of that one yellow ball. Because in twenty years from now, you're not going to remember how many games you won or lost -- in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. What you will remember, however, was that feeling you felt when you slid into home as your teammates gathered around you, cheering your name as you walked back into the dugout, your second home. Is there really any better way to end an era?
