By Rachel Applegate
Focus
Midland HS
1st Place Division 1-2, News Writing
Sports Columnist
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Sharp attention-getting lead
- Expresses personal opinion; uses consistent style; demonstrates knowledge of sports
- Reflects thought/research, freshness, individuality; avoids cliches
- Effective use of facts/quotes or supportive material
- Informative, interesting, entertaining
- Upholds journalistic integrity
- Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely and vividly
- Proper diction/grammar
I’ve never been a patient person and I don’t think I ever will be. The main thing I don’t have patience for is myself. I’ve learned that not having patience is one of the worst traits you can have for yourself, especially in sports. I play the sport that probably requires the most patience, golf. Those who play golf know it’s not something that you can just pick up overnight. It’s something that takes years to learn. However, being the impatient person that I am, I didn’t want to wait to get good. I wanted to be good right away. Let’s just say that didn’t happen.
Watching someone learn how to play golf is painful. Sometimes I would swing ten times and miss the ball every time, I’d take divots out of the ground until there was only dirt left. I would watch other people swing, wishing I could hit a fraction of that.
Playing high school golf was no exception to testing my patience. A few weeks in, the coach asked me to play with Varsity to see how I’d I compare to them. I was so nervous I forgot how to swing the club. I completely blew it. I stopped taking practice swings and just started whacking at it because I wanted to go home.
Sophomore year came around and the coach gave me another chance to play with Varsity. I blew it once again. My coach expected a much lower score and much better season, but that didn’t happen. Of course I’d hit the ball well at practice when it doesn’t count. But at matches, I couldn’t even hit half the distance I did at practice. Overall, my sophomore year ended no better than my freshman year.
So far, this year has been a roller coaster. I spent every day at the range over the summer because I was determined to be on Varsity. I didn’t want to be that Junior on JV. I was hitting the best I ever had and was ready for my qualifying match. This time I didn’t blow it. I actually did really well, and my score was good enough for Varsity. Finally, it was happening. All my hard work was starting to pay off, but that only lasted a week. One day at practice, my swing was gone once again. I had my first Varsity match the day after. I had the second worst score of the entire match.
I came home that day in hysterics. I don’t know if I’ve ever cried so hard in my life. Seeing my score posted with my name next to it was complete and utter embarrassment. I wanted to quit right then, but I didn’t. Being mad wasn’t going to solve anything. I honestly just made things worse.
Soon after my match, I had lessons with a PGA Pro. My swing has completely changed. However things didn’t get better right away. Golf is an inconsistent game and without a doubt, I know there will be a lot more failures. Like my coach has said, “Be patient, it’s a process.”
As hard as it is to put everything behind you, I finally learned the only way to get better is to simply respect the process.
The word quitter is used out of context more times than not. It’s a word that’s thrown around in sports left and right, when it doesn’t need to be. It’s a term that is seen as weak, yet hurtful. I understand that there are true quitters in this world, but I’m not one of them.
I played soccer for most of my life, but to this day I don’t know why. I played from ages 4-15, six of those years being travel. At one time, I loved the game, the people, and everything about it. But that was only through elementary school.
By the time middle school hit, I was over soccer. I was burned out and before I knew it, I hated it. I hated every practice, every game, and every tournament. I was miserable. I came home crying every day because I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t stand the fact that I was wasting my time on something I wasn’t even good at. I couldn’t stand the fact that I would drive hours to a game only to sit the bench. I never felt more out of place or self-conscious in my entire life. Everything I seemed to do was wrong. I would come home from running suicides so out of breath that my inhaler wouldn’t even begin to touch my asthma. It tasted like I was putting hair spray down my throat.
I’ve always been the type of person to try my hardest in whatever I do; but at that point, I just couldn’t do it anymore. But how could I quit? I’d spent my entire life devoted to this sport, just to walk away. My years of training, just for nothing. I didn’t want to be that one person who quits, but after years of thinking about it, what if I was the only person who truly listened to themselves? I tried to ignore the fact that I was miserable for years, thinking it would get better if I just did one more season, but it never did.
Freshman year was the final straw. I realized it was time to be done. All the pain, drama, and hate culminated into my decision not to come back the following year. It truly didn’t matter what other people thought, it was about what I thought. Looking back, I feel bad for the girl I used to be, a girl who was so concerned with what people thought that it made her hate herself. I couldn’t change the way other people saw me, but I could change the way that I saw myself. I have learned that walking away is sometimes the healthiest thing you can do for yourself. There’s nothing wrong, weak, or sad about listening to your feelings.
After leaving soccer, I’ve been able to try new things that I would have never thought of trying. Since freshman year, I’ve joined five new extracurriculars, all of which have value to me. I’ve never been happier in my entire life. I’m not saying that soccer was the worst thing that happened to me, because it wasn’t. Without soccer, who knows where I would be today? However, I’ve also realized there’s more to life than soccer, it’s just a game. Life is extremely short, and I’ll spend it on things that truly matter to me.