Chapter 60: HORIZONS – ROOKIE: Surviving Your Freshman Year of College Soccer

You’re going to blaze your own trail through college. You’re going to make your own choices and set your own boundaries and learn from your own mistakes and in the end, all of those things both good and bad will make up the best years of your life. While you’re navigating your way through this bold new world, heed this simple piece of advice: Be more than an athlete.

Outside of your classes, athletics is going to consume the lion’s share of your time. You’re going to spend most of your time surrounded by athletes. You’ll probably live with them, eat with them and hang out with them. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. However, there’s a great big other world beyond the athletes and I highly recommend that you avail yourself of this other world.

College offers you opportunities that you won’t get anywhere else. You can take a kick-boxing class on Monday and host your own radio show on Tuesday and volunteer at the soup kitchen on Wednesday and star in a play on Thursday! College gives you your one real chance to dabble in a zillion different activities and to bounce around from one interest to the next with no real strings attached. College gives you the chance to socialize with people that you would never associate with outside of the bubble. Embrace this! Spend some time with the freaks and the hippies and the nerds and the artsy folks that hang out in the coffee houses. Take advantage of all of this because the moment you put on that cap and gown, the bubble bursts and the honeymoon is over and you are officially a member of the real world and your days will revolve around whichever activity pays the bills.

Take advantage of the things and the people that college offers that exist in a world beyond athletics. Don’t leave college filled with regret saying, “I wish I’d done this and I wish I’d done that.” College gives you this amazing opportunity to do this, that and a hundred other things if only you make the effort to get involved.

You have a four-year window of opportunity to fill with unbelievable life experiences. Leave college with something more than just the experience of being an athlete. You’ll never regret it.

The Alums << Previous Chapter | Next Chapter >> Academics