Tag Archives: College Soccer

The End of an Era

As I sit here on my last bus ride to Gaelic, I find it surprising that I’m not overwhelmed by a flood of emotions. It is, after all, my last collegiate soccer game, the last game of my career.

Man, that’s depressing to write.

Today begin like any other day –  I got up, got ready, met up with Phebe and headed to Coles. Four years of waking my tired body, and forcing myself to get out of bed. Four years of carefully evaluating pregame and practice meals. Four years of walking to and from second home, Coles. Four years of taping my body up, of icing, of stretching, and foam rolling. Four years of hopping in vans and buses just to get to our “home” fields. And after four years, it’s all coming to an abrupt halt.

It still hasn’t hit me yet. I’ve been reflecting on it all week but I’m still at a loss for words. How can I describe my four-year career in a single word? Ineffable – I don’t expect you to understand because it’s simply been indescribable in so many positive and negative ways.

Come December I won’t have mandatory workouts, or meetings or lifts or events to attend. I won’t have to pass fitness tests or complete three-minute planks. I won’t have a stringent schedule to follow all summer and winter and I most definitely won’t have the last three weeks of summer planned out down to the last minute.

So, what comes next?  Retirement? If we win or tie today,  we might get an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament next week. If we lose, there is the chance of ECAC’s, which would be great and terrible at the same time. Making the NCAA tournament has been a goal of mine for the past four years. This has been a long time coming and I can only hope that we continue to perform to the best of our abilities.

I’ve collected a series  of shots over the past four years. Looking back its crazy to see how much has changed.

 

 

Redemption

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If you were to log into my Facebook the past couple of weeks, you’d be inundated with statuses about some of my friends making the NCAA tournament, photos of various college teams, and check-ins to airports across the airport. Last night I received multiple Snapchats from my parents and sister about the Final Four tournament in San Diego, where Penn State beat FSU and UNC defeated Stanford. To say that I was a little bit depressed last night would be an understatement. It was tough for me to see these teams still playing, seeing their dream still alive. What made it worse, however, was hearing that Emory made it into the DIII National Championships (which will be played tonight at 6:30). They will be facing Messiah whom they beat earlier this season. Emory comes into the National Championship game with a 15-1-7 record – their only loss coming from us, while Messiah comes in with 22-1-1 record – their only loss to Emory. Though it is difficult (to say the least) to watch these teams battle each other for the national championship, I can (and do) take pride in the fact that we beat Emory this year, so I hope they win.


Moving on… Next season has already been deemed the redemption season. There is nothing more in the world that I want than to go onto the NCAA tournament and just go out and win it. 

Our coach recently sent us an email following the end of the season. She often sends us quotes or stories, but this one invoked feelings when evaluating our season. It just spoke to me

Simon Hartley who wrote “Be World Class” was published in the NSCAA Publication “The Soccer Journal”.

When I see tough players, fists aren’t banging. In fact, the toughest players I’ve seen tend not to be physically or verbally intimidating. Maybe they don’t need to be. Instead, the players who show true mental toughness tend to display three distinct qualities.

1. RESILIENCE:
Commonly seen as “bounce-back-ability” and the capacity to thrive in adverse situations.
2. TENACITY:
The ability to keep going and push to the limit.
3. COMPOSURE:
The ability to make good decisions and execute skills to a very high standard, while “under pressure.” 

For those fellow soccer players and athletes out there, I hope this excerpt proves as inspiring and eye opening to you as it did for me. My goals for next year include being a mentally tough player as defined above.For the non-athletes, I hope this sheds some light into the mental aspect of athletics which is  a large part of my soccer career – especially as a goalkeeper. 

Here’s a quote for the weekend! Stay inspired 🙂41939840249689192_ceuv8IH4_c