From the nearly 8 million high school student athletes in the United States, only 460,000 of them go on to compete at the collegiate NCAA level. This statistic is all too real for mediocre-but-committed former varsity athletes like myself.
After four years of year-round competitive sports, it can be difficult to let go of that lifestyle. For many, this is the end of competition altogether. But while collegiate athletics can be unreachable, club sports are populated by those who love the game too much to leave it, and these organizations don't get enough love.
At Georgetown and many other universities, Club Sports provide students with a recreational opportunity to participate on an organized sports team for both competitive and casual athletes. Teams are organizations led by students and are managed by an advisory board made up of club athletes as well. Club Sports are a chance to remain in the sports that you've been committed to or to try something unfamiliar.
Swimming was one of my favorite parts of high school - the team was my family, I loved the sport itself and I was so close to my coach I started calling him Dad. We won three state championships. So, while I was ecstatic to start college in the fall, this was what I would miss the most.
I never really got back what I had in high school. Club-level Swimming is not exactly fierce competition. It's laid-back, sometimes disorganized and in the end, you are just swimming against yourself.
There's something that overrides all of this, however, and that's the team. I am surrounded by people just like me, who love the sport enough to want to continue but weren't one of the 460,000. While I may have lost the intensity I was used to, I got a whole new hilarious, quirky family to be a part of. I have learned to love that this is a whole different game, where wet T-shirt and flip-cup relays are what gets everyone excited, and that practice is about learning to push yourself instead of being told to.
I realized the most critical aspect of my sport is the team you are a part of, and in Club Swim I've found a group as fun and as dedicated (and a little weird) as it gets.
Club sports may be different than high school varsity, but all in all, they still offer a close-knit team that loves the sport just as much as you do, and in the end, that's all you need.
