Once upon a time, there was a perfectly happy and satisfied college student. He was eating delicious meals and lounging casually on a sun-drenched quad, and thoughts of school work and nagging obligations were concepts as foreign as math to a philosophy major. He was at peace with his life, content to spend the rest of his day in this delightful oblivion without a care in world. Then, from the far-off reaches of his semi-consciousness, a muffled beeping noise began to invade his constructed paradise. The beeping got steadily louder, until finally he fought through the haze and opened his eyes.
Crap.
A day in the life of a Conn student-athlete begins much like any other. Sunny quads are replaced with a misty freezing rain, quality food vanishes in favor of curried cold lumpy somethings from the hotline in Harris, and the full weight of the enormous workload he’s been avoiding for the past month (or three) falls squarely on his shoulders. Begrudgingly, the day begins with a trip to a dining hall, the results of which are an upset stomach and a cup of hot black battery-acid coffee, which is sure to only exacerbate the gastro-intestinal issues.
The three classes, for which he’s woefully underprepared, fly by in a blistering thirteen hours, for seven of which he was fully conscious for. The German Bundesrat get confused with the War of 1812, isosceles triangles with conjugations of Italian verbs, and after a lengthy phone call with his mother ensuring her that the tuition check is going to good use he stops in at Harris for another serving of shapeless egg product.
Once practice rolls around, however, life changes. Just not necessarily for the better. The locker room brings together a diverse group of people all united with one common interest: their hatred for all things practice. Cleats are tied as slowly as possible, the equipment is checked and double checked, and after there are no more avenues to delay the actual practice, everyone walks slowly out to the field.
The first thing with which the team is met when they finally arrive is the coach. Contrary to popular belief, coaches are not hired to motivate. Their job is neither to get the most out of their players, nor to scout their opponents and formulate a game plan. No, the job of a coach is to pick apart each individual member of their team, find their flaws and point them out to the rest of the team. After that inspiring bit of pre-practice cheer, the coach often tries to rationalize including fitness into the day’s plan.
Despite arguments from the goalkeepers (me) that fitness is a waste as we never have to run more than six feet at a time, the coach makes everyone run some amount of miles about which no one is pleased. That is, unless you’re on the cross country team, in which case you’re absolutely psyched that your coach suggested running to Pennsylvania, if not a little disappointed that you couldn’t swing by Toronto as well.
The rest of practice flies by in a blur of oxygen deprivation. At least for me. Sometimes the team is privy to another treat the coach decides is beneficial to our development; watching film. Now, everyone likes movies, so you might think this is a good thing, but it simply is not. Watching The Shawshank Redemption with some friends is a lot of fun. Watching Williams wipe you all over the field and beat you by half a dozen goals is not fun. Regardless, the coach thinks this is a positive learning experience, and everyone in attendance spends the next hour watching a TV and cringing periodically.
Sometimes when the teams are very lucky, practices include more running than usual. If the coach keeps you past Harris’ operating hours, each member of the team is given a Cro Pass. In theory, these are a solid idea; providing athletes who miss dinner a way to get some kind of quasi-nutritious food in their system. In reality, however, Cro Passes are the main reason behind any financial problems Conn has. The passes themselves provide each athlete with enough food to feed all the offensive linemen from my previous article with enough left over for a midnight snack.
Well-fed and thoroughly entrenched in a food coma, the student athletes stumble uncomfortably back to their dorm rooms, where the positively daunting pile of school work accumulating on their desk remains dust-covered and forgotten. Exhausted, they close their eyes and drift slowly back into their familiar dream of sunny paradise and relaxation.
That place is called “the off-season.”
