If there is one thing I learned after two years of college, it is that being on the golf team in addition to being a full-time student is no easy task. Yet, there are reasons why I, and others, make the conscious decision to stick with it. As a student, hours are spent in the library preparing for exams, essays and presentations. As an athlete, those hours are borrowed (and not returned) for a different kind of preparation - practice, lifting, and other forms of training. For a perfectionist like myself, it is difficult to grasp that it may not be possible to give full devotion to one side, or it may be. The only way to find out is to compartmentalize.
In other words, when you are in the library with your chemistry textbook open, you are a student. The only thing on your mind should be maintaining focus on the six pages of notes you have left to review before tomorrow's exam. But, you have a game on Wednesday and you are worried about your parents coming to watch. Soon, the half hour of note-highlighting becomes a two hour ordeal because your mind trails off into performance anxiety. It is now 11:30 p.m. and you have just completed your chemistry notes, however, your brain is exhausted. You struggle to finish the five-page paper that is due tomorrow. You decide to go visit a teammate to complain about your sore obliques from the early morning workout yesterday instead. A few distractions later and it is library closing time. You decide to finish the paper in the morning before class.
Performance is also hindered on the field, court, or course when thoughts about school begin to crawl through the seams. Yes, you are a student too, but in these cases, you are simply an athlete. When I am on the golf course, I tend to constantly worry about how much studying I will need to do that night or how unprepared I feel for my nursing competency that proves how skilled (or unskilled) I am at injecting medication into a patient's arm. For instance, I step up to the tee box at practice, attempt to loosen up with a few practice swings, and, as I reach the top of my backswing I hear "don't forget to measure APTT before giving Heparin." The next day at my competency, I remember the recitation, however in that moment at practice, I hook the ball left into the trees.
What I have learned is that in order to be successful in either realm, one must bring the focus back into the present. Yet, doing so takes lots of reminders that it is entirely impossible to control anything else. Clearly, my errant golf shot into the woods occurred because I began to worry and shifted my focus away from where it needed to be.
This is why the hyphen in "student-athlete" is there not to connect the two words, but to divide them.
When you are a student, you are a student. When you are an athlete, you are an athlete. When you are celebrating an A on your exam or a successful game, match, or tournament on a Saturday night, you are a student-athlete. In these celebratory moments, the hyphen no longer becomes a divider, but rather a means to recognize the hard work put forth toward success in both worlds.
Being a student-athlete is surely no easy undertaking, but it has taught me a lot about the importance of organization and time management, which I know will help me in the future.
While it is stressful at times, I would not trade it for anything. Well, most of the time (endless pizza would be pretty good, too).
