As a college freshman, you look for identity. You are trying to figure out exactly who you are in a big, bad world that you were left in by yourself. It’s scary and intimidating, but lucky for me, one August, my identity was found, and I knew from that moment on, four little letters would become a part of who I was, and would mean more to me than I believe I will ever be able to put in to words.

Y.N.W.A

You’ll Never Walk Alone. These are the four letters on the crest of the Virginia Wesleyan soccer jersey, on the warm up, on the practice jersey, on anything that has the Virginia Wesleyan Women’s Soccer title on it. But what starts as four little letters on a shirt you are given becomes so much more over four years.

It becomes a relationship over hundreds of miles, over land sea and air. No matter where I am in the world, I have people to call, people to see and people to love. I have people who have my back, and who will be there through every life obstacle and every great moment. Through every death, they are my first call, and with every new job or graduation, they are the first I want to share a drink with.

It’s a relationship that goes far beyond a classroom and game stats. It goes beyond when you wore that number and sat in the infamous locker room that surrounds Foster Field. It goes beyond championships won, and games lost. My friendships formed through these letters range from players I was blessed enough to step on the field with, to players who I was lucky enough to have support me from the sidelines, some long after their careers had finished. How many programs can truly say that?

You’ll never walk alone means many things, but ultimately, it means just that; no matter where this life takes you, on or off the field, you won’t be alone. Any injury, any championship, any heartbreak, any job promotion, any good and any bad, you will have a team behind you. No matter where my life takes me, I will forever be defined by these four letters, and will forever credit who I am to them. Not because of what they are, but because of what they gave me: a family.

YNWA is forever a part of my life, and as life continues to change, I am forever grateful for a program that gave me a family beyond my playing years and a home beyond my time at a school. It’s a motto, it’s a quote, it’s a way of life, and forever I will be a member of Virginia Wesleyan soccer, but more importantly, I will never walk alone.