When you picture a typical college student's Saturday night, you probably do not picture them sitting in a hotel, getting ready for bed at 10:30 pm. But for a student-athlete, this can be typical during season. And, it's what I'm doing tonight in Indianapolis. Now, some may think we are crazy, and admittedly, at times we are. But if you love the sport you play, its worth it. Its really not too bad; we only travel about 8 weekends out of the entire school year. That still leaves 30 or more to be at home and do whatever we want!
Although tennis (or any sport for that matter) can be a love-hate relationship depending on the good days and bad days, I'm just trying to soak in the experiences I am receiving from this great opportunity to play a college sport. While I am intensely competitive and desire ever-so-much to be successful, I'm realizing more and more that my success in tennis (or lack of, some days) can't define me. Nevertheless I still try my hardest. But more importantly, I am trying to just E-N-J-O-Y, as hard as that can be to do for an extremely competitive person like myself. Looking back at making a decision to play college tennis or not, I'm extremely happy. Only because I enjoy it and love it, despite not being the most amazing player and having to fight for my spot near the bottom of the line-up.
If a high school junior or senior were to ask me my opinion on if they should play a sport in college, my answer would be: Only if you will truly enjoy it. Don't do it for your parents, don't do it just to get a scholarship, don't do it for any other reason than for yourself. Sure, you will still have days and moments where you are frustrated during practice or tired from writing a paper until 2am the night before or wishing you could do whatever fun thing your non-athlete friends were doing that afternoon while you are at practice. (There's that love-hate relationship.) But, as long as the 'love' moments greatly outweigh the 'hate' moments, you know you made the right decision. Here's a really cool short poem/article written by a baseball player at a DIII College (rockhurst is actually DII but this fits well with our team and myself):
http://www.ascsports.org/sports/2007/8/17/Why%20We%20Compete.aspx?tab=whydivisioniii
(You will have to copy and paste-the hyperlink isn't working)
Seeing how my random reflections and thoughts seem to center around tennis tonight, you can tell that we are hitting the busy part of our season. I haven't been doing a whole lot else lately besides school and tennis. Easter was very nice and relaxing, but the long weekend seemed to go by waaaaay too fast. Lastly, I would like to share my new desktop background with everyone. Its a quote from Norman Vincent Peale that I really like:
Goodnight for now,
~Jaycie Jane
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