Being an athlete, life can just be different sometimes. Every now and then, you might miss a party because of a game that was too far away. You tend to put a lot of time into your sport and your crazy schedule reflects it! Often, your life can start to shape around soccer practices, golf games, and softball tournaments. Your team becomes a family and you really love what you get to play.
But the time when being an athlete sticks out to me the most is definitely summer. I wake up the first Monday of June and sit at the kitchen table eating my breakfast and tying my shoes while I know perfectly well that the rest of my family is still sleeping and that half my friends won’t wake up until after lunch. I drive to school, walk up to the weight room, and have Coach Stringer check my name off the list for one of my fifteen required volleyball lifts. While it may be a pain to drag myself out of bed in the summer, when August 1st rolls around and volleyball preseason kicks into gear, I have never regretted those workouts.
With the grueling August heat just outside of the gym’s air-conditioned windows, one might mistake volleyball as the “easy” sport. Do not be tricked. We work hard, we run hard, we drill hard, and we play hard. But when it is all said and done, my teammates are my friends on the court, in the rivalry game against Hockaday, at our sleepovers, and at our pool parties. I love this sport, I love this family, and I love that the time I put into it is definitely worthwhile.
Volleyball Athlete, Class of 2010.
