In high school, everyone is supposed to have a certain “thing” that defines them in the eyes of their peers. He’s the football star, the math prodigy, the best singer at schoo. I find that most people pick a certain hobby or sport not because they love it or have a natural talent for it, but because of the people it’s associated with. Every sport has a group of people who are associated with it, for example the football players are the popular jocks, the lacrosse players are the relaxed type who like to party, the tennis players are the more geeky-school type, etc. This isn’t true for every individual but it’s how the general population of MS will view you, whether you like it or not. In the fall of sophomore year I had to pick which spring sport I wanted to play so I could practice in the off season, lacrosse or tennis. I had to decide in the off season because if I wanted to be ready for the actual season I had to make sure I was focusing on just one sport. It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make because I knew it would shape my high school career.

I sat in the fitness center waiting for everyone who had signed up for tennis to arrive. Even though I was only a freshman I could tell that none of the kids who had shown up so far were exactly my type of friends. They all were the very academic type of course, always keeping up straight up A’s and planning to get into the best college they could. Nothing wrong with having so much ambition for your education, but these people sitting in this room were not my friends. They were all boring as hell, and could never seem to go five minutes without talking. During the second practice outside, I totally lost it. I had to play a placement match against one of teammates to determine our spot in the line up. I started losing point after point and almost all of them were my own error. I kept getting more and more frustrated which just caused me to tilt even more, making my game even worse. WHAM, WHAM, WHAM! I smacked my racket hard against the fence. I thought to myself, who are these people? I want to see my friends in lacrosse, I want to be out on the field with them. As the season progressed things got easier. I was able to make some friends, although I never spoke to them outside of tennis. I had a pretty good season and got a lot better. I loved the sport of tennis itself but the people who played it? That was a different story.

Next fall I had a major decision ahead of me. I sat in my room over a notebook, writing out the pros and cons of each. Tennis or lacrosse? Lacrosse had all of my friends playing it. But switching meant I would have to start learning all the basics of a new sport when I had just spent the last 2 years mastering tennis. If I played tennis, I’d get major flack from all of my friends for not choosing lacrosse, not to mention having to deal with all the uppity varsity tennis players who couldn’t even fathom getting a B- on a test. Tennis was still so fun to play though, but so was lacrosse. I had spent a few days over the summer going to the field with my friends and a couple lacrosse balls and having an absolute blast. I could never experience that kind of fun with my peers in tennis. Tennis is actually more competitive than you’d expect. Yes, we’re all on the same team, but everyone is constantly looking to be better than their teammates to secure a higher spot on the roster. I had never felt more torn in my whole life. I wished I could play both so badly but that just wasn’t possible. I tore the paper in half and collapsed on my bed, my mind was flying everywhere all at once. I just wanted to barf out my brains so I could sort through all my thoughts. No matter how much I contemplated, it still took my until the very last minute to decide.

I came to the decision that the best thing for me would be to stick with tennis and hone my skills. I had already come so far I decided I couldn’t turn back now. I trained and took private lessons all of fall and winter. When spring came, I remember talking with the assistant coach about how much I had improved. “If I we’re being honest here, I’m really proud of you for not backing down on this and taking by the jaws in order to improve. You didn’t seem too invest last year but I can tell you’ve been practicing” he told me one late afternoon. It was those words and some thought and I decided to break away from what seemed like a safe choice. Going with tennis helped me flow against my usual routine and friends. It helped me grow as a person and learn a lot about patience and being able to choose a road less traveled on.