If you’ve played on any type of collegiate sports team, then you know that there comes a time when it all comes to an end. To those who played a fall sport and are finished, you know the feelings and emotions that your fellow Spring-Sport athletes will be feeling sooner than they even expect. There is no possible way to warn them how bad the sports withdrawals will be or how often they will wish to have it back. Life for retired student athletes is never the same, it’s almost like we lose a part of our identity and have to create an entirely new one.
Senior athletics is truly a year of “lasts.” That last first game. Those last away trips and long bus ride you swear you never want to go on again. Fun pregame locker room rituals. Heartbreaking ties. Tear-jerking losses. Triumphant wins. Senior Night.
Then comes your last game ever - unless you’re lucky enough to make tournament play then you fight until the end. And then like that, it’s all over.
Never again will you have to endure those uncomfortable bus rides, upsetting losses or what seems like unendurable fitness…but after all that is gone what do you do next? Nothing will ever be able to fill the place of all those good and bad times, those hard days of sprinting and those long nights of homework after practice will be all that you want back. If you’ve ever been a part of any college sports team then you know what comes next. After our final game of putting on our team’s jersey and playing for the pride of our school, you become a NARP, a “Non-Athletic Regular Person”
As a recently-retired college athlete myself, the term "NARP" has hit me hard lately. I see other athletes getting ready for practices and playing games and all I can think about is how bad I want those days back.
On days I think about how being a "NARP" is my new label and I can’t do anything to change it. But recently as I’ve been getting back into the routine of working out and hitting the gym, I think about my life down the road: teaching my kids how to play and playing in one of those dreaded 40 and over leagues one day. And then the idea came to me: I refuse to be a "NARP" and instead I will identify with being and athletic regular person, an "ARP." I, like most of my athletic peers, will forever be an athletic person and there is no doubt about it. So why should we be subjected to such a harsh label? Just because our collegiate athletic careers are over, doesn’t mean we have to fall into the pattern of true NARPs, those who have never experienced the thrill of playing for their school and creating that team bond that us athletic people have done for so many years. So let’s change things around, no more NARPs, but only ARPs!
