The Daunting Idea of Becoming A Retired College Athlete

I know not only for me, but all other senior college athletes are avoiding facing the idea of becoming a retired college athlete in a couple of months. Our time is slowly coming to an end whether we want it to or not. In a couple of years, no one will know our name and we will be replaced with other players and fresh names on the roster. The team family environment that we once knew will move on and pursue different things and become invested in different players. It is a scary thought that is daunting for a lot of seniors. The idea of knowing you have teammates that have your back and a coach that you respect and look up to is comforting. My responsibilities are going to go from making sure I get practice time in every day to making sure I get up and ready for my 9-5 job. No one will know the tournaments I won or the low score I had while playing in college. I will be just another face. This idea is scary and seems to be getting closer and closer everyday. I do not want to move on and I do not want to leave the family I have created here in athletics at Berry College. The idea of moving on and starting another chapter in my life is scary.

For a lot of college athletes, all of their childhood and upbringing has been spent going to travel tournaments, missing school events for tournaments, and constantly trying to be at your best in order to have college coaches take a look at you. We have trained and practiced our whole lives to be in this moment. The biggest achievement for a lot of us has been to be able to play our beloved sport at the collegiate level. Being able to play in college has been a wonderful thing that you will forever cherish and will one day tell your kids. A moment that is fleeting and slowly about to run out of time. Our responsibilities have always revolved around our sport. We have constantly thought about ways to improve how we play or lessons that we can schedule to improve our performance. There is no such thing as perfect in our eyes; there is always something we can do or a drill we can practice that will make us better.

I know that a lot of senior athletes here at Berry have already experienced it in their fall sport, but there will come a time when we finish our last and final conference tournament. We will put down our equipment and leave our college performance behind us. It will soon become a distant memory that we look back and think fondly of. We will not remember the specific tournaments we played in or the scores that we posted, but we will remember the experiences we had. We will remember the funny stories we had while being on the bus for 8 hours. We will remember the late nights from getting back from a tournament at 4 am. We will laugh and reminisce about all of the good times we had.

I can not remember a time that I have not been hitting a golf ball or scheduling a swing lesson with my coach. I have scheduled my whole life around golf. The amount of friends and school functions I have missed for golf is much, but I would not change it for the world. I have met some of my best friends through high school and college golf teams. A lot of my teammates have become sisters to me. While I know that these friends along the way will be there for a lifetime, it is hard to imagine that for the younger friends I have made. I will not be there for their accomplishments on the course and off the course. I won’t be there to hug them right off the 18th hole or celebrate with them on the bus ride back. It is a feeling that I do not know how to describe. A feeling of letting my teammates down because they were there for me for all of my accomplishments, but I will not be there for theirs.

I am not sure that I can play golf for leisure after becoming a retired college athlete. I love competing in competitions and playing for a score. While I know that I can play in tournaments after college, it is not the same playing as an individual as it is playing for a team. The thrill of being on the 18th hole knowing your score is counting is like no other. Yes it is a lot of pressure, but that is why a lot of us play college athletics. Yes, we complain about being under pressure and how scary that situation is, but it truly is a great feeling to know you made your teammates proud and did your job. The feeling of knowing that your team is counting on you is thrilling and makes you strive to play better.

It has been a privilege to play my sport in college. I feel truly blessed that I can state that I have been able to play college golf at Berry College. As hard as it will be to put down the clubs at the end of April, I am forever grateful for the experiences and the friends the game of golf has given me. The game of golf is truly part of who I am. No matter how busy I get and how much I sometimes complain about golf, I truly love the sport and who it has connected me with. Without the game of golf I would not have the best friends that I have and met the great boyfriend that I have. I am forever grateful for the people and places that golf has led me to. While it is a bittersweet moment to leave college athletics here at Berry, it truly is a blessing to have made the friends that I have and had the experiences that I have had.

Thank you again Berry College Golf and Berry College Athletics

-Teagan Fritts