Development of the Body and Soul
The most dreaded years of the average teenager's life... high school.
Growing up as a child, your mind is full of the possibilities your high school years will give you. Us girls picture our dream prom dresses, finally being able to date, staying out late. While there are a lot of positive things to look forward to, there are also many worrisome thoughts. Fear of the unknown is something many people struggle with, so it makes perfect sense why many upcoming high school freshman get flooded with anxiety.
Before going into high school, I was deeply terrified. I didn't know what to expect and I felt this sense of insecurity flood over me. I was the type of person to give up at the smallest inconvenience and not fight through struggles that life threw at me. No matter what I was going through, I didn't have the confidence to not let it get to me. My faith in God was not as strong as it is today, but I knew I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me. There was one important thing in my life that helped me step out of my comfort zone as well as learn how to stand up for myself and what I wanted in life; that was sports.
At the age of 12, I started playing volleyball after growing up watching my older sister play her heart and soul out on the court. I admired her for being such a confident person, but I couldn't figure out how she did it. She was so content with who she was as a person and I wanted to be just like her.
Speaking from experience, when you're in middle school, and sometimes high school, you don't often realize how important sports will become in your life as a student athlete. Once you do realize how important they are in your life, you have a stronger appreciation towards having the opportunity of playing on a team that you grew to love.
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The summer before my freshman year of high school, I decided that it might be a good idea to do workouts to prepare myself for the beginning of my high school student athlete career. I began working my butt off for the sport I was determined to master and grow to love just like my sister did. She was my role model that I strived to become.
The first day of practice was very different compared to middle school volleyball. Similar to school work at lower grades, sports are the same. You learn the basic rules or the sport while you're in middle school, but you don't get much further than that, unless you are completely dedicated to bettering yourself.
After going through one day of high school practice, I realized that high school athletes put much more work into their sports than people realize. Once I got home that day, I looked back on all the games I watched my sister compete in, both high school and college. When I was younger, the game looked easy, just as though anyone could walk onto that court and join the game, but after experiencing it first hand... I thought completely different.
Have you ever stopped and thought about what happens behind the scenes of the public games you watch in a gym or on a field? Outsiders may criticize certain things that go on in a game or a competition, perhaps judge certain players for "messing up" when it truly wasn't there fault at all. Those who aren't experiencing the same thing that those players have experienced, don't truly know what goes on during all those long hours spent with the teams and coaches. Well, I'm here to inform you what truly occurs at high school practices...
In my experience, high school practices were treated quite professionally. What I mean by this is if you were seen goofing off, not taking that practice seriously, or putting the blame on other teammates, you could be punished by not being allowed to perform at the next game. On the court or field, those around you are your team; you experience everything together, the good and bad. There should never be a moment you put your fellow teammates down, always build them up and to help them become the best version of themselves. While being together as one, if a majority of your team messes up on specific drills, the whole team would experience the punishment. The punishment would usually be running at a fast pace until your coach tells you to stop. You continue to do the drills until you have them down and then move onto new drills. Are any of these wrong, too harsh, or asking too much from young adults? Absolutely not.
Being a student athlete means you are able to balance your school work, home responsibilities, as well as your practices. Student athletes in general are most likely the most organized and well disciplined students at their school, but it's not because they are better than the other students that attend daily classes and work hard to get good grades. Why are they so successful if they live such a complicated, busy, overwhelming lifestyle? Well, let me break it down to you...
Being a school athlete is waking up at 5:00am to be at practice at 6:00am. Your team dedicates a majority of practice time conditioning, running, and stretching in order to get yourself ready to give your 100% during practice. Your team goes through daily drills that you know like the back of your hand in order to save your muscle memory for games against your opponents. After the drills you're familiar with, you move onto newer drills that test skills you didn't even know you needed for competition. The next thing you know, you're running across court at full speed just to get the ball, or else your team will have to go through a punishment together as a result to the ball touching the ground. You're diving across your side of the net to save the ball on the final hit, taking it over the net while you slam your body hard against the gym floor right after you gave it everything you had.
Being a school student athlete is starting your running exercises before season even begins. You hit the weight room as often as you can in order to build up your muscles and become more successful throughout your season. You ask your coaches ways to improve your form so that while competing, you can be faster, stronger, more capable than your competitor. You fall down and get back up again, no matter how hard the impact was. You are able to laugh at your mistakes and correct them quickly to become better than you were yesterday. You compete with your best record time and cut down seconds in a race in practices in order to be even faster at meets. It means you look at yourself in the mirror after weeks of practices and see a different person staring back at you. You see a more improved, confident, glowing version of yourself in that mirror that you hardly recognize. Are you in pain? Yes. Are there floor burns, scratches, deep cuts, and bruises? Yes. Are you feeling the exhaustion take over your body? Yes. But the most important question...
Do you give up? Absolutely not.
There is nothing life can throw at you to make you decide to give up. Do things get hard? Yes. Does the thought of giving up pop up randomly during the pain and training experienced during practices? Yes, but you never give in. You have grit. You have the will to fight through ever obstacle throughout your sport, school, home, etc. You view the difficulties of life in a different light and realize that the more you put into something, the more you get out of it. Will everything be dropped in your lap just because you "work harder than everyone else"? No, that's not how life works. Life has and always will be unfair, but it takes you having the strength to keep going in order for things to look up.
That is what sports teach you. Being a student athlete means being able to take your social life, school work, home life, and sport and balance the responsibilities of each one. You know each of these are extremely important in your life, but you don't let the inconvenience of prioritizing get in the way of great achievement. You are awesome just the way you are and deserve more credit than you get. No matter what gets thrown at you, look in the mirror and remind yourself that you are stronger than you think you are.
Growing up as a child, your mind is full of the possibilities your high school years will give you. Us girls picture our dream prom dresses, finally being able to date, staying out late. While there are a lot of positive things to look forward to, there are also many worrisome thoughts. Fear of the unknown is something many people struggle with, so it makes perfect sense why many upcoming high school freshman get flooded with anxiety.
Before going into high school, I was deeply terrified. I didn't know what to expect and I felt this sense of insecurity flood over me. I was the type of person to give up at the smallest inconvenience and not fight through struggles that life threw at me. No matter what I was going through, I didn't have the confidence to not let it get to me. My faith in God was not as strong as it is today, but I knew I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me. There was one important thing in my life that helped me step out of my comfort zone as well as learn how to stand up for myself and what I wanted in life; that was sports.
 |
| 7th grade volleyball picture (no confidence whatsoever). |
Speaking from experience, when you're in middle school, and sometimes high school, you don't often realize how important sports will become in your life as a student athlete. Once you do realize how important they are in your life, you have a stronger appreciation towards having the opportunity of playing on a team that you grew to love.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The summer before my freshman year of high school, I decided that it might be a good idea to do workouts to prepare myself for the beginning of my high school student athlete career. I began working my butt off for the sport I was determined to master and grow to love just like my sister did. She was my role model that I strived to become.
The first day of practice was very different compared to middle school volleyball. Similar to school work at lower grades, sports are the same. You learn the basic rules or the sport while you're in middle school, but you don't get much further than that, unless you are completely dedicated to bettering yourself.
After going through one day of high school practice, I realized that high school athletes put much more work into their sports than people realize. Once I got home that day, I looked back on all the games I watched my sister compete in, both high school and college. When I was younger, the game looked easy, just as though anyone could walk onto that court and join the game, but after experiencing it first hand... I thought completely different.
Have you ever stopped and thought about what happens behind the scenes of the public games you watch in a gym or on a field? Outsiders may criticize certain things that go on in a game or a competition, perhaps judge certain players for "messing up" when it truly wasn't there fault at all. Those who aren't experiencing the same thing that those players have experienced, don't truly know what goes on during all those long hours spent with the teams and coaches. Well, I'm here to inform you what truly occurs at high school practices...
In my experience, high school practices were treated quite professionally. What I mean by this is if you were seen goofing off, not taking that practice seriously, or putting the blame on other teammates, you could be punished by not being allowed to perform at the next game. On the court or field, those around you are your team; you experience everything together, the good and bad. There should never be a moment you put your fellow teammates down, always build them up and to help them become the best version of themselves. While being together as one, if a majority of your team messes up on specific drills, the whole team would experience the punishment. The punishment would usually be running at a fast pace until your coach tells you to stop. You continue to do the drills until you have them down and then move onto new drills. Are any of these wrong, too harsh, or asking too much from young adults? Absolutely not.
Being a student athlete means you are able to balance your school work, home responsibilities, as well as your practices. Student athletes in general are most likely the most organized and well disciplined students at their school, but it's not because they are better than the other students that attend daily classes and work hard to get good grades. Why are they so successful if they live such a complicated, busy, overwhelming lifestyle? Well, let me break it down to you...
Being a school athlete is waking up at 5:00am to be at practice at 6:00am. Your team dedicates a majority of practice time conditioning, running, and stretching in order to get yourself ready to give your 100% during practice. Your team goes through daily drills that you know like the back of your hand in order to save your muscle memory for games against your opponents. After the drills you're familiar with, you move onto newer drills that test skills you didn't even know you needed for competition. The next thing you know, you're running across court at full speed just to get the ball, or else your team will have to go through a punishment together as a result to the ball touching the ground. You're diving across your side of the net to save the ball on the final hit, taking it over the net while you slam your body hard against the gym floor right after you gave it everything you had.
Being a school student athlete is starting your running exercises before season even begins. You hit the weight room as often as you can in order to build up your muscles and become more successful throughout your season. You ask your coaches ways to improve your form so that while competing, you can be faster, stronger, more capable than your competitor. You fall down and get back up again, no matter how hard the impact was. You are able to laugh at your mistakes and correct them quickly to become better than you were yesterday. You compete with your best record time and cut down seconds in a race in practices in order to be even faster at meets. It means you look at yourself in the mirror after weeks of practices and see a different person staring back at you. You see a more improved, confident, glowing version of yourself in that mirror that you hardly recognize. Are you in pain? Yes. Are there floor burns, scratches, deep cuts, and bruises? Yes. Are you feeling the exhaustion take over your body? Yes. But the most important question...
Do you give up? Absolutely not.
There is nothing life can throw at you to make you decide to give up. Do things get hard? Yes. Does the thought of giving up pop up randomly during the pain and training experienced during practices? Yes, but you never give in. You have grit. You have the will to fight through ever obstacle throughout your sport, school, home, etc. You view the difficulties of life in a different light and realize that the more you put into something, the more you get out of it. Will everything be dropped in your lap just because you "work harder than everyone else"? No, that's not how life works. Life has and always will be unfair, but it takes you having the strength to keep going in order for things to look up.
That is what sports teach you. Being a student athlete means being able to take your social life, school work, home life, and sport and balance the responsibilities of each one. You know each of these are extremely important in your life, but you don't let the inconvenience of prioritizing get in the way of great achievement. You are awesome just the way you are and deserve more credit than you get. No matter what gets thrown at you, look in the mirror and remind yourself that you are stronger than you think you are.
 |
| Senior Year volleyball picture (self confidence shining through) |
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