Thank you to all who have read and considered replying to my query:
Name: (can be personally messaged, or remain anonymous, just so I can give you credit for your information if you want it)
Age and/or Calendar Years of College Attendance:
College(s) Attended: (again, optional)
Sport(s):
How did you "decide" to become a College Athlete?:
Accomplishments in Your Sport:
Accomplishments in the Classroom:
Regrets, if Any:
Favorite Memory (Memories) of College:
Funny Stories:
Regarding the Pressures/Expectations of Being a College Athlete:
Do NOT feel pressure to answer all the questions. Any information you provide will help someone! Thank you again, and I look forward to learning from this experience!
-Mia
A wonderful Penguin Emailed me his response to this template, so with his permission, here it is:
ReplyDeletePART 1
Name: Frodo Baggins* (name changed for confidentiality)
Age and/or Calendar Years of College Attendance: Redshirt freshman
College(s) Attended: Ole Miss
Sport(s): Track and Cross country
How did you "decide" to become a College Athlete?:
Growing up I loved sports. Whether it was watching my Cincinnati reds and Bengals play or playing basketball, baseball, and soccer I always wanted to be involved. I wasn’t involved in running hardly at all growing up. I mean sure the occasional field day at school but that’s it. Unlike I feel a lot of competitive runners I never ran in middle school. However, after I was the last one cut on my freshman baseball team I decided give track a shot. Then my junior year I quit the soccer team to try cross country. My first two years of running were nothing special 4:14 in the 1500 2:04 in the 800, 16:35 in the 5k. Believe me tho I thought I was amazing, but that’s just because I was competive in my area. (Which for northern Kentucky isn’t a lot to brag about). However junior year indoors I ran a 15:35 5k on the track and that’s when I realized that I could compete competively at the D 1 level. Sure, I def told myself I could before but that race really made my mind up that I was going to run D 1 in college. A little side note as a military brat I had not lived my whole life in the northern ky area so I wouldn’t consider any school remotely close to where I lived and I wanted to only run in a Big time conference. (Sorry lipscomb, and mcnee state didn’t really give you guys a chance but I had my mind made up.)
Accomplishments in Your Sport: have not competed at the D 1 level
Accomplishments in the Classroom: 4.0 GPA, on the deans list every semester, SEC Freshmen honor roll
Frodo Baggins, PART 2
ReplyDeleteRegrets, if Any:
The reason I haven’t competed at the D 1 level is because I was injured my freshman year. The frustrating part was going into college I hear the horror stories of highschool kids getting injured and never being the same again in college. I vowed I wouldn’t be one of them. Well the very first week of practice with the team and I go down. The traning staff originally diagnosed it as Achilles tendonitis and thought I would be only out two weeks. One and a half years later I’m finally back! Haha Turns out I had a rare bone in both my ankles, this bone had grown since birth and was attached by cartilage near the ankle region, ostrigonum syndrome is what its called. The bones had gotten looser and looser and eventually were pinching my Achilles tendons, causing pain and my injury. I finally got surgery in June to remove the bones. My regret with this was I wasn’t assertive with the traning staff. Maybe part of it was their fault, maybe they got lazy but it took six months after the intial tendonitis diagnosis, and minimal improvement, for them to do any kind of imageing of the ankle region in febuary and find the extra bones. Now I will admit I should have told them after a while that I wasn’t getting better. But at first I thought I was showing improvement. I’m a positive person and I like to look at the cup half full. So I wasn’t going to be mr. bad news and say things weren’t getting better. Ultimately this hurt me in the long run. But what am I supposed to do, I’m gone from home for the first time and here I have to deal with medical staff for the first extended period of time in my life, I had never been injured in highschool it was a mess. Thankfully I did get the surgery, I haven’t had any setbacks, and am back to even better shape than I was pre injury. I just wish I had been a little more assertive.
Another regret I had was not being at a lot of the practices last year. Instead of meeting with the team first I would head straight to the traning room and cross train. It just felt awkward for me to stand with the team when I wasn’t traning with them. I was also peeved that I was injured for the first time after probably the best summer traning of my life. It finally got to the point where the coaches had to bring it to my attention so I started coming to more of the practices. I definetly feel like I should have been to more of the practices and integrated more with the team. But for me it was a little awkward and embarrassing when I did. Like I didn’t deserve to be there until I was healthy. Luckily this year I’ve had none of these problems.
Frodo Baggins, PART 3
ReplyDeleteFavorite Memory (Memories): My favorite memory so far has been the rebel choice awards we had last year on campus. This was a defacto awards ceremony for the sports programs. I was so proud of the team because we brought home the most hardware, had the loudest cheering section, and definelty looked the most fly! Eventhough I wasn’t running at the time it felt good to support my teammates.
Funny Stories: I came in with a couple other freshmen distance guys and just like all distance people in general I think there a little lets just say special. They were into filming videos in their dorm rooms late at night. Why I have no idea. Anyway one of these videos is about the college life in general with some kind of Beethoven music in the background, I did mention there were special right haha. Anyway one scence a dudes in the bathroom butt naked wipping his cheek umm wow. So this thing gets on youtube and they have to take it down within a week so the coaches don’t find out, hilarious!
Regarding the Pressures/Expectations of Being a College Athlete: Thankfully my parents have never pressured me in running or any other kind of sports. I feel bad for the kids that have to go through that. It’s uncalled for what some parents make their kids do. Yes there are professionall athletes out there and yes some kids do get rich. But the majority don’t and I feel like parents are just making bad memories for kids piling on crap like they do. I think an outsiders view of being a D 1 athlete is a little skewed. Yes there are perks, we gets free gear, travel the country, and some of us get money for our education, but please this isn’t college football, or even basketball. Were not rolling around with entourages, we don’t all have $20,000 cars. All the girls do not want to get with us, teachers don’t do all our homework. The list goes on and on. In fact sometimes I wish college football didn’t exist because the compliance garbage we have to go through because of them is a nightmare but that’s another story. What most people don’t realize is that its almost like a job. Lucky for me I love running and would never think about it like that but I mean come on. I’m spending 4-5 hours everyday involved in running. Getting up at 6 am going to bed by nine. Getting paid (through scholarhip, meal money, opportunity fund etc.) to do something. It’s a lot of work. There is a ton of sacrifice. Ole Miss is a huge party school. Although not everybody goes out and parties it tends to feel that way. Greek life is everywhere you look. For the college athlete its tough realizing you cant go out every night and hit up all the frat houses. One you have class the next day and two you have to go to class. I mean you feel like everybodys rushing so you need to rush too! Ultimately I think that’s the biggest pressure for me the party atmosphere at the #3 (last time I checked) party school in america.
Frodo Baggins, PART 4
ReplyDeleteHow Being A College Athlete/Coach/Parent/Fan has had an impact upon your life in the past, present, and future: College athletics has taught me the importance of balance, planning, and priortys in my life. You need to keep your life balanced. Friends, school, track are what I try to focus on. If you lean too much on one and not the other you’ll just stress yourself out and miss some great opportunites. Talk about planning I have to juggle two practices, classes, studying, and chill time everyday. Especially with school work when you need to get something done get it done. Call of duty, chicken tenders at Abners, or suzy q next door can wait. Finally my priorties have gotten lined up. Going into my freshmen year they were skewed. I was thinking about college and running and not about what should be #1 in my life, my lord and savior Jesus Christ. Through my injury all last year God kinda woke me up telling me hey its not all about you, running shouldn’t consume your life, I need to pull you back in. Especailly with something as rare as ostrigonum syndrome I definetly think it was his doing. I’ve realized that everything I have comes from him and that I need to be thankful everyday not just that I’m a D 1 runner but that I have a personal relationship with him.
Thank you, Frodo!!!!
-Mia