“The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows; it’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently, if you let it. You, me or nobody is going to hit us as hard as life, but it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” – Rocky Balboa.

This quote from "Rocky VI" is one of the many inspirational quotes that kept me going every day as a student-athlete. I did everything I could to keep myself going because the game of baseball was something I couldn’t imagine myself without. The strange thing was that the sport I love so much taught me more about life than I could have ever imagined. Being a student athlete was the toughest challenge I have ever experienced, but without those challenges, I don't know if I would be where I am today. The constant battle between school, baseball and a social life taught me how to prioritize, work fast and enjoy the people around you!

Now that I can look back at my year of baseball on La Salle University’s baseball team, I realize just how much I learned as a freshman. Number one (and most important), I learned how to prioritize. By that, I mean of the 900 things I had going on at once, I was able to find the most important and get what I needed, accomplished. Every away series we had, we left on Thursdays around noon and didn’t return until late Sunday night or early Monday morning. It was totally up to us to make sure our teachers knew we wouldn’t be in class on Thursday or Friday, and we would have to find a way to get all assignments done while playing a three-game series. There were many times I would get back from my games on Saturday and just wanted to sleep, but there was work to be done still. As exhausted as I was, I would work in my room until all my assignments were done, so that I wouldn’t be stuck trying to complete work while crammed on a bus on the way back. Freshmen didn’t get their own seat, so being able to comfortably work on a laptop sitting on a bus for a 15-hour road trip just wasn’t an option. There would be some nights where I would be up until 2 or 3 a.m. doing work, knowing I had to be up and awake for the team breakfast sometime between 8 and 10 a.m. Looking back on it now, I’m glad I did that because it taught me that to reach my goals in life, I am going to need to push myself past my limits and sometimes give up sleep in the process. It was a valuable lesson that I was able to learn in just my freshman year.

Next, being a student-athlete taught me how to work fast. By that, I mean when I am doing something, I needed to be focused on it and not be wondering off into the land of my cell phone. There were never enough hours in the day being an athlete. 5 a.m. lifts, followed by class, followed by practice (and possibly conditioning), followed by homework and repeat. I didn’t have time to get caught up on my phone because there was always something else that needed to be done. That was another great lesson for me, because now as I look back at it, I realize that in order to be successful, you need to be able to accomplish tasks in a timely manner. This is something I now have great experience with!

Last, being a student-athlete taught me to enjoy everyone in my life! There has never been a time in my life that I was more upbeat and happier than that year. I became brothers with all 35 men on my team. We created a bond that will never be broken, with some of the most athletic people I’ve ever met. Along with that, my non-athlete friends were always asking me about my experiences, which made me feel interesting and that was awesome! Being a baseball player helped me form some of the greatest friendships in the world and I will be forever grateful for it.

Playing baseball in college may not have always been the easiest, but it sure did teach me some great lessons about life.