I am very bad at emotions, feelings, any source of humanity I struggle with.
The one place I have always been OK at it is in my writing. Sometimes that means my texts are better than my ability to talk and communicate, sometimes that means a blog post is my way to express what's inside. (I understand this isn't healthy and I need to get better at handling my emotions and feelings, in general, I need to mature in that side of life).
I had been wrestling with writing for a while, it's crazy but in a summer that seemed more low-key than most, I was almost busier. But I always knew I would come back to writing.
I spent the summer "living the dream" I worked in our football offices and then was blessed to go back to Orlando, Florida for almost a month and work with some amazing people at AAU putting on their volleyball national championships. Followed that with a trip to Disney and It seemed like I had figured a lot of things out.
I was wrong, I was acting, and I am probably more lost and confused trying to figure things out now than I have been ever before but I am 23, I don't have all the answers. I am still learning and growing and most importantly making mistakes. I heard recently a quote from Kobe Bryant, "the story goes on" Kobe Bryant said that when talking about failure and how no matter the result, the consequence, it's never really a failure because "the story goes on".
I had different ideas on what I would write about, I am a bit of a scatterbrain while also being bi-polar. But one idea I kept coming back to was my most vulnerable idea. Opening my mind and soul to people as I enter a very different fall than my past 4. I am going to write every week this semester, the good, the bad, the ugly, the pretty, the football, the not football and give an insight into my mind as I finish my career, and my education at Ohio Northern.
As I enter this fall, I am the starting Quarterback at Ohio Northern University. An old man, team grandpa, a 5th-year senior, and the Quarterback at this amazing university I have called home for the past 4 years. Now did it happen as I dreamed it would ABSOLUTELY not. Injuries, lost competitions, lost games, lost people. It reminds me of something my dad always used to say, "you go to college almost more so to learn about yourself and learn who you want to be than the material you learn about in the classes". I have to learn now who I really am, and who have I become over the past 4 years.
This pre-season has been different from my past in that for the first time, I am looked at as the starting quarterback to go along with being voted a team captain for this final year in Ada. The expectation is that I am the person that leads the offense and the team. Rightly or wrongly the quarterback receives a lot of the credit and often a lot of the blame in the game of football. The team game of football. I love this team, and this pre-season has solidified that I made the right decision returning to ONU. This group of guys is special and I love each and every one of them.
Throughout camp our coaching staff does as much as it can to build a team and family of the 150+ guys we enter the season with, it is the job of the seniors and the leaders of this team to bring it all together. It can be anything from team bonding meetings, to speakers, to movie nights, anything to bring the team together. I was asked a couple of key questions through camp, questions, and advice to give to the freshman.
Q1: What is something you wish you knew as a freshman? (this applies to almost everything in life though)
A1: There will be good days and bad, and that is okay, there will be ups and downs, it is a part of life.
Q2: What is your advice to freshmen?
A2: Enjoy every little moment, live in the present, because you don't know when it will be over, and the good times will be all the times when you look back at them with memories.
I somewhat surprised myself with the answers, I seemed so wise and thought out, so put together. It is what I genuinely wish I had known, but there is still so much for me to know. I may be the oldest player on the team, but I am far far far from having all the answers for my teammates.
There have been good days and bad days on the field, probably more good than bad, but it is closer in number than it should be. I have to work on that because as a leader my attitude drives more than I am even aware of. I have to be the best I can be so others push themselves to be the best they can be.
Off the field, as we enter the first week of the real season I am doing everything in my power to keep everything the same. I have to handle this week just like it's any other week, but it's not really, is it? It will be my first collegiate start, and that's the reason I came back, well one of them at least, to compete and play and help this team win football games. I am nervous, I know I am surrounded by great people, coaches, teammates, and supporters that will prepare me and help me be successful but that does change the fact that I will be nervous and that is okay.
I am also still in college, I think a lot of people in the world forget that on the bigger stage. Those athletes wearing your alma maters uniforms on Saturdays are still that, college kids. They have other things in their lives going on. I understand that maybe they are being given A LOT by a university to perform and compete but perhaps understand they are still college students. They have classes, they have social lives, they have families, they are not robots, and they are not perfect.
Remaining in college as a 23 year old, after most of the class you entered school with has graduated is an interesting feeling in all honesty it is a lonely one. The campus in which you were surrounded by "your people" now feels like a pit stop before you drive off into the real world.
I only have one class this fall so the distractions at my disposal educationally are quite limited. But I can still make distractions and mistakes, and I have.
I have made decisions that hurt the people I care or say I care the most about and to her I say I am sorry. But I have to live and learn from those consequences and outcomes. I have pushed away people that only wanted to be there and support me, and I ran away because that was easier than me opening up to someone.
I have always kept up an image since attending college. The image that a lot of people in the world want others to see them as, being perfect. What makes it even funnier or ironic (still not 100% on the definition of ironic) is I make fun of those people, the ones posting on Instagram their perfect lives, and relationships all the things they have going on. But the truth is I quietly was trying to be perceived as that person too. But no one is perfect (yes I know that sounds cheesy). The image of having everything put together, the image of being the tough athlete, the image of the stereotypical guy, all of it I allowed to become a part of me, and I allowed my pride and stubbornness (one of my strongest attributes) to get in the way of a lot of growth I could have had in being myself.
Perhaps this can be my start, this writing, the wins, and losses, lessons learned and success stories found. Hopefully, I can take all I have truly learned about myself throughout my college years, put it all together and be the best me I can be.
