Enjoy it while it lasts. Enjoy the hot practices, the early morning lift sessions, the long bus rides with your teammates. Enjoy the wins, the loses, the ties. Enjoy every minute as it comes, because it'll be over faster than you think. One minute it's freshman year, and your only goal is to make it to varsity next year. The next minute, it's your senior night, and your last home game, match or meet is over. You'll never have an experience like this again. You'll never play with your teammates again, never put on your uniform again, never hear "It's game day" as you're walking through the halls ever again. No more pasta parties, no more runs to the grocery store before away games and just barely making it back in time for the bus, no more pre-game pump-ups in the locker room.
At first, it's weird. You'll go home after school instead of heading to the locker room. You'll turn on your car radio and hear that pre-game pump-up song, but you'll be on your instead of with your teammates. You'll have so much extra time you won't know what to do. It's not all bad, since you'll have more time to spend with friends and family, but that's what teammates are, right? For that season, they are your second family, your best friends. The end of high school sports isn't just the end of a team, it's the end of an era, of a family.
You will feel sad. Maybe not right away, maybe as soon as you step onto the field, track, or court for the last time. The realization could hit you during the ride home after the game, or as you start the last leg of your final relay. It could hit you as you're sitting in your third block class, only halfway through the day.
There will be tears. There will be tears as you hear the final whistle, as you run to your sideline for the last time. There will be tears as your coach begins to talk about how much the seniors mean to the team, and how much they will be missed. For weeks, you've been looking forward to not having practice after school, to having some free time. Now that the moment is here, you will never want it to end. But it will, and time will keep moving on.
This isn't the end all be all though. For some, they may never play a sport again, and that's OK. Enjoy the times you had with your teammates, and look back on them now and then. For others, they might go on to play intramural sports in college. They'll make new friends, create a new team, and make new memories. Then again, others will go on to compete at the collegiate level. This means harder practices, longer runs, tougher teams. It means a new opportunity to grow into a better athlete. This new team will be strangers at first, then friends, then family. The end isn't really the end, it's a new beginning. Your teammates, your friends, will always be there for you, and soon enough, your new teammates will be, too.
So enjoy it while it lasts, and look forward to what the future holds, too.
