Life of a college athlete during preseason

Athlete Journal Entry #5: Thursday, August 23, 2002

On Thursday morning, the first practice of the day started a little bit later than usual. We started at 8:30 a.m. instead of the normal 8:00 a.m. start. For this morning's practice we were told not to bring cleats or shin guards, but only our running shoes.

When we showed up, Coach (Matt) Crist called the run that we were about to do the "Shelby Run." The team was ready and we were off. We ran about one-and-a-half miles through back roads behind the school's athletic fields. All of a sudden Coach Crist stopped and we waited while every player caught up. He told us to hold on, and he walked up to the front door of the house that we stopped in front of. As he got to the door, a woman with her son in her arms came out. Shelby and Tyler Wagner (Coach (Dan) Wagner's family) were introduced to the team, and then it was time to turn around and run back to the fields. The pace picked up a little bit, and when we returned to the fields, we stretched and we went back to the dorms for naps and rest.

By the end of last night my legs had finally stopped burning in any way and I began to feel very good and refreshed. After a relatively easy morning jog, my legs felt pretty good, and my body was very relaxed. The afternoon awaited.

The afternoon session began with a passing drill. I struggled a lot with this drill as many of the players on the team did. The drill is very good, and it should not be so hard, but for some reason many of us had a lot of trouble with this drill. Then we broke into two groups. The outside midfielders worked on positioning with the outside defenders, while the other players did a penetrating possession drill. Then we played 8-vs.-8 for the remainder of the middle session.

The evening session began with a quick drill and a warm-up followed by the two groups separating again with the roles reversed from positioning and possession. The day finished with another 8-vs.-8 game which was ended in good fashion. Coach had said earlier in the day that he was looking for a left midfield player to step up and as I played my first shift of this game in that position, I stole the ball, broke free, created space and chipped a ball into the middle to an oncoming runner from midfield who finished in two touches and it was a good way to end. I am not one to brag, but it felt so good to finally really do exactly what I was trying to do. I have been trying certain tricky passes that I know I can make, but I have struggled with. This time it went right. I felt very good about ending practice on a good note, and I am already very pumped about the morning session.

Then we did a sprinting drill and had another talk with the coach as darkness fell. The morning started out pretty well with a relatively easy jog, followed by a very rough opening drill for me. I worked out my mental focus and my problems and I worked through it to finish up as strong as I could. I am hoping things are now moving in the right direction, and it is something to build off of. For people looking at possibly playing a college sport, it is not worth harping on the things that went wrong. When something goes wrong it happens, mistakes are made, but it is now behind you and there is nothing to do but try to do better and get your focus back. This brings the better players to that level, while the players who continuously make mistakes are not getting mentally focused.

The upside to this is that when you do something well, that's when it is time to build on it. Make yourself better, force yourself to get focused, and get better each time. The team did a very good job of this as a unit. We had a couple of problems with the passing and receiving drill, but we focused, worked hard, and made up for it by all playing very well in the scrimmage.

Earlier in the day today, the Centennial Conference announced its preseason poll for men's soccer. We were picked to finish fifth in the conference. We are all hoping for more respect, and we will use a little bit of this to motivate ourselves for the season, although not much motivation will be need with our schedule, which is one of the toughest Division III schedules in the nation.

Until tomorrow (the day before our first scrimmage), I am going to bed, with most of the aches and pains washed out, a very excited and happy player.