Whether you are finishing up your conference play, heading to the NCAA tournament, or your season got cut short too early, this one is for you. For as long as you can remember, you have been playing the sport that took you to college and has consumed your time and life. For four years you have endured countless fitness tests, 6 a.m. lifts, two-a-days, glorifying wins and heartbreaking losses. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end.
Being on a team in college is something not many get to experience. It is different than being in a club, being in a sorority/fraternity or participating in recreational sports. You give all your time, energy and life to the sport. You spend more holidays with your teammates than your own family. You create a special bond with your coaches, trainers and teammates and they become your family away from home.
You gain 20 new sisters and brothers, who would go through anything for you. You fight for each other every day at practice, in the weight room and in the classroom, so in the end it will be worth it. It always is. Sometimes the outcome doesn't always end up the way you wish, but at the end of the day you are still a winner. You are a winner because you have gained best friends, bridesmaids, life long friends and sisters.
If you ask most college graduates what their favorite college memory was over four years, it probably has to do with graduating, surviving a crazy night or a spring break trip. If you ask a graduating student-athlete what their favorite memory over the last four years was, nine times out of ten it has to do with a team trip or a game they played in.
These last four years as a student-athlete has given you more life experience than you can imagine. Learning to apply it to the real world is what will take practice (which is something you know all too well). You know exactly what to do in game situations, and a lot of those situations can be applied to life. Interviewing for a new job, dealing with personnel issues, meeting deadlines and finishing a task are all areas you have had years of experience in.
Many of you will feel lost. That feeling is normal. Every former student-athlete who has graduated college has had to fight through the transitional period. Whether it is trying to manage too much time and not knowing what to do with yourself, or reminiscing on old pictures and memories and wanting so bad to turn back the clock. You will soon identify your new normal.
All of your life, all you know is competition. The real world isn't any different. This is just half time in a really big game of life. You're just changing the game plan to play the second half. This half you are going to play smart and go back to basics. Go back to everything your parents, coaches, teachers and teammates taught you. You may be done with college athletics, but the real game isn't over. You won the first half of your life, so go out there in the real world and win the second half!
