At a very young age, sports came naturally to me, I fell in love with the thrill of athletics and the feeling you’d get when you stepped onto the court or athletic field.
Truthfully, the younger version of myself couldn’t seem to imagine my life without the game. I was the 'tomboy' of the family, the little girl who’d much rather buy a pack of New York Yankees trading cards instead of a Barbie doll.
My life has quite literally revolved around athletics for the past 15 years.
I have always been the type of girl who plays a sport every single season. In the fall it was soccer, when winter came around it was basketball, and after that, during the spring and summer months it was softball. Playing sports inevitably became my identity; I was known as the athlete of the family, the complete polar opposite of my sister who was more or less a girly-girl. I woke up, went to school and class, then practice and finally finished my night off with homework and studying. I’ve basically repeated the same routine my whole life and just recently noticed that I wasn’t truly growing to my fullest potential; I wasn't really experiencing new things.
When I began the next chapter of my life in college, I was given an extraordinary opportunity to play basketball at the intercollegiate level.
Granted, it wasn’t necessarily my first choice sport because I had always dreamed of playing softball, but I was willing to settle for a sport I also loved. You see, making it that far was something I had always dreamed of accomplishing. Although, this past year really opened my eyes to the harsh truth that this identity I had established and maintained over the last several years was going to come to a bittersweet end, an end that I was beyond ready to conclude.
Over the years, playing sports has given me an amazing array of teammates that have turned into lifelong friends.
These teammates have made even the most difficult practices and heart-wrenching losses somewhat enjoyable simply because we were going through them together. It’s showed me that in order to work for something you really want, you must be willing to use an endless supply of blood, sweat and tears to attain it. Yet, it has made me into the type of person I am today, a strong, independent woman, who’s very competitive, hardworking and dedicated. I am the person who won’t settle for anything less than what I deserve; the person who will start something but won't stop until it’s conquered.
Though the shot clock has run out and the last whistle has finally blown, I am incredibly thankful to have had the ability to compete for as long as I have.
Especially as an athlete who once stood on top of the hardwood, where the NCAA letters laid at my feet. It’s actually quite weird to say the least, but in the last game I had ever suited up for, I had a peaceful feeling inside indicating that it would be my last. As Mia Hamm once stated, “Somewhere behind the athlete you've become and the hours of practices and the coaches who have pushed you, is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back.”
To the five-year-old version of myself who had fallen in love with the game all those years ago, you’ve fulfilled and typed up the final chapter of this story.
Yes, you’ll always have that love for the game, but it’s time for you to take on new opportunities that have begun to present themselves, opportunities that will allow for you to better yourself. You've been a caterpillar stuck in the same cocoon for so long, but it's finally time for you to spread your wings and fly, into an endless amount of possibilities that await you.
As for every game, inning, quarter and meet I have ever competed in, thank you, to the remarkable noun referred to as 'sports.'
This six letter noun allowed for myself to exert many of the incredible talents that the little girl with 'sports specs' and tie-dye knee-high socks would’ve never known she was going to have. Though my competitive athletic career has come to an end, I’ve begun to realize: there’s more to life than sports.
You'll forget a lot of the plays, the shots, the wins and the losses, the amount of times a coach screamed at you and how many times you've scored in a single game. But you'll never forget the way you've felt in those moments and the joy you had in being apart of something truly special.
As I've concluded this chapter of this story, I will say, that the pride of sports will always and forever be a part of me, for the rest of my life, no matter what I decided to embark on.
