For four years I participated on my high school’s swim team, and for four years I complained about the difficult workouts, the daily practices, and the smell of chlorine that never quite left my hair. Each season I would complain to my teammates about getting into the pool when all I wanted to do was sleep and binge watch my current Netflix show. However, the truth was that I loved being a part of a sports team. It made up a lot of my high school experience, and helped me grow as an individual, and as a part of a team. Now that I am in college and my competitive sports team days are over, I desperately miss it.

One of the things that I miss most about being a sports team, that I absolutely never thought I would miss are the daily practices. Being on a team in high school gave me a scheduled daily workout that helped me stay in shape. No matter how much homework I had, or any other activities going on that day, I still had to go to practice, and because of this, I never had to think about finding time to work out. Without that mandatory workout in my schedule at college, it can be very difficult to make it to the gym. With class, homework, work, club meetings, and the abundant social opportunities in college, sometimes there seems as if there is no time to work out. Also, since I no longer have a coach who will be angry if I skip practice, I have to rely on myself and my own motivation to work out, which quite often, isn’t there.

I also miss the camaraderie that comes with being on a sports team. My teammates and I bonded over bus rides to the pool, the practice drills that we absolutely hated, and the struggles that we all faced as swimmers. I was able to meet a whole new group of people by being part of a team, and this helped me develop socially. One of my closest friends from high school was on the team with me, and being on the team together is what made us close. We spent hours on the bus to practice or at actual meets talking about random things, complaining about our swimming performance, and most importantly cheering each other on. Swimming gave me an opportunity to build relationships in a way that I could never have done without it. I miss having the group of people who you get to laugh with, and work together with in order to succeed.

The competition is also something I miss a lot about high school sports. There was always that drive, or push to do a little better, or go a little faster. In high school sports you were not just competing against yourself to improve your own skills and beat your time, you were also competing against your teammates to compete in certain races, and against other teams to win. Now, in college, I just compete with myself to perform better in my workouts, and without that added incentive to improve, sometimes it is difficult to gain that motivation, or to feel full satisfaction from your improvement.

Of course many colleges offer sports teams that give you the team experience that you had in college, but many individuals, like me, do not have the time to participate, or their activity of choice isn’t available. However, while my competitive sports days are over, I still can hold on to all that I have learned from it. Being on a team has taught me about hard work, dedication, teamwork, and how to push myself to be my best. These are lessons that I can carry through my life and apply to everything.