Frustration

I wrote this post last night, but I am just now posting it today.

So if you read my first blog or my “About Me” page you know that this blog is a place where I talk about the joys and frustrations of being a college athlete. I’m not here to only talk about the good things or to sugar coat situations. Some coaches might be offended or aggravated about what I’m about to write but it is the truth.  This is a blog about what it is really like to be a college athlete.

Everyone has those days… The ones that make you just want to crawl into a little ball and not leave their bed.  Well that was me today. Why I thought taking 19 hours, plus soccer, plus an internship and my sorority was a good idea….. But for some reason I thought I would be really good at balancing it all.

After class today, and a meeting with SAAC and a Conference USA representative, I was able to crawl into my bed for a quick nap before workouts. Woke up extremely flustered because I thought I was late, threw on my clothes and sped on over to the weight room.  Today we had our team workouts where we did a weight circuit. Normally we have music when we do them but the stereo was broken today.  So to take our mind off how much we’re dying and how tired we’re getting, we talk and joke around with each other.  It makes the workout more enjoyable and it makes it go by quicker.

But today, somehow our friendships with one another and our team comradery translated to our coaches as us not wanting to be successful, us slacking off, us not working hard enough and us not wanting to win. We were in the middle of a circuit when the coaches decided to bring this up…. They yelled at us saying how we complain about not being successful but then we don’t want to work hard.  This was a slap in the face to not just me, but to every one of my teammates.  We all became extremely quiet and the mood and atmosphere changed dramatically.  Everyone became pissed off and aggravated (which isn’t really a good combination with 20+ plus girls in a small room). Suddenly workouts weren’t motivational or inspiring.  You could tell that we were all thinking the same thing: Just because we are best friends and like to talk to distract each other from the pain of the workouts, doesn’t mean we don’t work hard or that we don’t care.

The game of soccer has always been a place for me to let go of everything else going on in my life, it is my distraction from the real world. I look forward to practices ad workouts because it is the time that I get to spend with my best friends doing the thing that we love, playing the sport that we love.  Just because we joke around with each other to make the 45 second plank, the 30 seconds of kettle bell swings, the 10 50 yard sprints or whatever hard workout we have go by a little faster, or to make it more enjoyable, doesn’t mean that we aren’t working hard enough or that we don’t care.

For most of us, we are only given four years of collegiate play to enjoy the sport we grew up playing.  None of us want to spend these cherished years miserable and not enjoying the game that we grew up loving.  We play this sport because we were given the talent and because we love it. None of us would put forth this much time and effort if we didn’t love the game. So its frustrating when I’m told that I don’t care or that I don’t want to win, because that is furthest from the truth. Win or lose, these girls, this team, is what gets me through the day.  They are what keeps me motivated… So if I have to tell jokes or laugh or smile to get through a plank or a sprint or a squat… Then I’m going to. Life is too short, these 4 years are too short, to not enjoy the sport we love. If I enjoy what I do, I’m going to give it my all.  I’m going to bust my ass because I love what I do. So let me enjoy my practices and workouts. Let me enjoy my last year of soccer.

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