Season after season, you put in maximum effort to be the best you can be. You worked harder than Lebron. You kept your head down and didn’t get mouthy with reporters. You went to every training session and never had an Allen Iverson “We talkin' 'bout practice” moment. You went through two-a-days, where you rolled out of bed at 5AM, maybe even earlier, and went to practice the game you love. You kept your grades up as best you could, because unless you’re a superstar with a bunch of rally girls and cheerleaders to do your work, you did it yourself and could not afford to drop below the C-grade required to play ball. You ate nasty green vegetables and drank kale smoothies to balance out all the protein you ate during a day. You were always doing laundry because the sweat and mud smell was too funky to leave for another day. You used so much athletic tape that it would probably wrap around the world a time or two. You played through injury almost every practice and game. You did all the drug tests for the NCAA. You smiled for the high school Booster Club calendar. You drank an obnoxious amount of Gatorade. You went to every team breakfast. You ate Rice Krispies with Powerade because there was no fridge on the bus. You put your eyeblack on perfectly. You performed all your pre-game rituals exactly the same each week. You lent a hand to an opponent lying on the turf. You intimidated the defense with your skills. You scared the offense with your brute strength. You stopped every puck from lighting the lamp. You avoided getting penalties because that would leave your team a man down. You took punches and gave them right back to get the team going. You played game after game and went on road trips for days or weeks at a time. You had that millisecond where you thought about doing steroids, but then reconsidered how bad of an idea it was a millisecond later. You read inspirational quotes from Knute and JoePa and Ali. You watched game tape instead of TV shows. You only changed the channel from ESPN to FoxSports to NBCSports. You studied your opponents before your matchup. You read the playbook over and over again even though you had it memorized. The offseason just meant you traded game day for a 7^th day of practice.

You were about as dedicated to the game as you could be, and were on top of the world. All you wanted though, was to make it to the Big Leagues–to play against the finest athletes in your sport and showcase what you worked hard for all these years. Somewhere along the line though, maybe in high school, or in college, or after some time in the Minors, you realized that you were never going to make it to the Bigs, and it sucks.

According to the NCAA website, you're not alone. Only 1.5% of college football players go to the NFL, CFL or Arena League. Only 60 men’s and 36 women’s college basketball players get drafted a year, out of almost 8,000 draft eligible. Baseball is a little better, drafting 738 NCAA guys a year, which is about 9.7%. Only 6.6% of NCAA Hockey players go pro. This is including overseas leagues and the minors. That leaves a lot of us hanging, and we’re inevitably going to become NARPs.

It will hurt a little bit, that day you have to hang up the pads/cleats/uniform. To those of you who’ve already been there, you know that it hurt a lot. You’re going to want to keep playing forever, but the toll it’s going to take on your body will probably force you out of it. You’re going to want to find any way to be involved that you possibly can, even if it means coaching Pop Warner and peewee.

There’s no real way to fill the void, and I want you to be prepared. Beer league and rec leagues are going to sound promising, and you’ll eventually settle into the once a week or once a month game schedule. Nothing, though, is going to replace your time as an athlete.

If you’re feeling like you spent all that time competing for nothing, just remember why you started playing in the first place. The kid version of yourself who realized even then it was about playing the game-not banner and titles and trophies. Realize how far you have come to get to this point. Today, you are the greatest version of yourself. Even if you’ve been sidelined by injury, that injury can only make you a better person, because you know what it's like now to lose the game for a time. You’ve gained skills like sportsmanship, resiliency and determination. You may not be signing autographs and winning Heisman’s, but you got the sport at its purest form–untainted by money.

I am not going to lie to you, they’ll be days that it will suck. You’ll see an old teammate on ESPN, or in Sports Illustrated. You might see your backup get drafted in the First Round. You might see your biggest rival on a Gatorade poster. Stay as positive as you can and remember, it’s not about the games you could have played, it's about the games that you did. The past is the only thing set in stone, so make sure what you give in the present and future is worth being chiseled. Live in the moment, because they don’t last forever. Don’t quit now in fear of being thrown out into the NARP world later, that’ll only deter your greatness. In the words of Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over 'til it's over.”