It's all you knew, from when you started playing before you could walk. You don't know a life off of a field or court yet. All you know is your sport, your team, and the bittersweet dread of practice. When you near the end of your sports career, whether you graduated, ran out of eligibility, got injured, or anything in between, you're not really sure how it's going to feel yet. You don't know what it will be like to not schedule your classes around practice. You don't know what it will be like to not base your diet on the next practice. You don't know how to work out on your own time, without your team or coach pushing you to your best. You've had a mandatory workout planned for you every day since you were a child.
You don't realize how much you will miss travelling. You didn't love writing papers on the bus, or missing three tests you had to take early, or getting back to campus at 2 a.m. and having to be in your 8 a.m. class, but let me tell you: You miss it. You miss having sleepovers with your best friends in hotels all across the country. You miss getting to the hotel and having an hour to sit on ridiculously comfortable beds and watch TV. You miss waking up early for practice and getting free hotel coffee. You miss continental breakfasts and going out to eat with your team. You miss hilarious, eight-hour bus rides when delirium sets in. You don't miss how you had to skip out on a few family holidays, but you miss having that family dinner at coach's house.
You go to the first game of the season that you aren’t on the court or field, and it’s one of the weirdest feelings. It’s like you’re watching your family celebrate your favorite holiday without you. You can’t talk to them, you can’t hear what’s going on, you can’t hear the next play that the coach calls or why he took someone out of the game; you don’t know who’s upset about how they played or who’s happy, and you don’t know how much fun they had in the locker room or what music they listened to. The first game is hard, but it gets easier. You start to realize that you can still be their No. 1 fan. You can still be more proud of them than ever, and you realize that it’s just another chapter of your life that’s closed. You can still play your sport in other ways. You can still watch it whenever you want, and go practice on your own. You’re still the same athlete you were, but you just learn to enjoy it on your own time.
The hardest thing to deal with is that you might feel like you lost your identity. If you were completely wrapped up in your sport and who you were because of it, then you can feel completely lost when it's over. The good thing is, though, that your sport doesn't define you. You aren't defined by your reputation. The most important thing that you can take away from your sports career being over is to put your identity into the only constant that there is in life: God.
He is the only thing that won’t get taken away from you. He doesn’t end. You won’t be lost. Instead, you will be found. You won’t be searching for the next thing to place your identity in. You will have found it in God, and that identity is far more satisfying than a jersey. So, I know from experience that it’s a rough start, and that the ending of your sport is a tough thing, but don’t lose yourself because of it. Don’t scramble around trying to put your identity in different things. There is only one jersey you need to put on for the rest of your life, and that’s the one for God’s team. Hand over your jersey and let Him be your ultimate identity. Trust me, it’s better than your best game.
