I played basketball from the ages of 4 to 18. It was a part of my identity, which I loved because basketball at my school was such a great community. There were a couple of years where I would play for four teams a year because I couldn’t go a day without it. My dream as a little girl was to make my high school varsity team, and when that became a reality during my freshman year of high school, I was ecstatic. Now that I’m in college, here are three things I miss about my time as a high school athlete:
- Constant Activity
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It was so nice to have some sort of workout scheduled for every single day. At the time, did I hate doing pyramid workouts and running sprints? Yes. Would I love to have two-hour practices now? Absolutely, yes. After a long day of school, I was able to get out all of my stress and anxiety on the court, and I left it all there after practice. It was so nice to have a group of people all working together for a common goal, which was to be the best team we could be.
- Teammates
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My teammates were like my sisters. We would fight about stupid stuff but be laughing about something two minutes later, completely forgetting that we were even mad in the first place. They would still give me a huge hug when I was sweaty because they couldn’t have cared less. Sure, there are sisterhoods in other places, but teammates are a unique kind. Even though we have all gone our separate ways, we keep in touch and will always love each other like family.
- Game Days
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The energy on game days was hard to match. We all had butterflies, and we all wanted to win for each other. In our excitement, we arrived at games four hours early to pump each other up. We blasted music and danced around the locker room—if anyone had seen us, they would’ve thought we were insane. Once it was time to get serious, it was like a switch was flipped and we all put our game faces on. We had such great chemistry as a team, which made playing together so much fun for us. The feeling in the gym with people coming to cheer us on was unlike anything else. We would forget about all the stress of high school to focus on the game we were playing. It forced me to think and feel in the present moment.
It’s been two years since my final season, and I miss it every day, but I have a different kind of team here. The Notre Dame community is a team of its own, but instead of being twelve people, it’s closer to twelve-thousand.
Photos 1, 2 and 3 provided by author
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