Driving to Aberdeen, South Dakota for the fall of my sophomore year felt very exciting. Forcing myself to stay under the speed limit, I sat anxiously in the car listening to my new ipod playlist with a mixture of country hop and the occasional rock and roll.
Leaving it all behind again, Amery, my house, my job, my girl, the fun of the summer nights, and days out on the lake. I couldn't wait to pull up to my dorm room to move in all my stuff from the storage box I had rented the previous spring. I arrived HOME at around 2pm and immediately walked upstairs to my room. Unlocking the door, I found the empty, hot room to be half filled with my roommate's possessions. I slightly smiled as I saw his bed made neatly on the top bunk. (I warned him that if he had taken the bottom I would put a hurt on him)
The first meeting with Coach Timm.
I walked into his office quietly while Marcus cracked a joke reminding me of my terrible takedown ratio I had the previous year as a freshman varsity starter. I shook Coach's had and took a seat. He looked at me and smiled a little bit. The first words out of his mouth, "174?" He took me by surprise, but I said the first thing that came to my mind "Ah, umm... Yea! Absolutely yea." He looked a little puzzled at first but then I explained that I would do whatever I could to help out this team.
The first day of practice
We all knew it was going to be hell. We gathered in the Barnett Center as we always had the previous year for the start of preseason. Coach came out of his office and said we needed to have a good day of practice to start things off strong this preseason. We all gathered in for a breakdown and a small smirk came across one of our captains' face as he remembered our pre-workout breakdown. "DO WORK!" He yelled, then the rest of us chimed in "HARD AS F***" Coach looked at us with a big grin, we knew he had to intervene but he just laughed and shook his head as the track coach walked by with a disgusted look on his face. Deep down coach loved our breakdowns.
The sounds of weights bouncing off the ground after power cleans and the loud yells and hollers of all my teammates brought me back to my first ever day of lifting as an NSU wolf. Man it felt good and thought of me getting my hand raised in front of our hometown crowed gave me a long shiver that started in my neck and went all the way down my legs. "I love wrestling," I said out loud as me and Donald changed the weights to our next set on the bench. We finished lifting and now it was time for the timed run...I pushed myself, my lungs burning, my legs aching from our dreaded back squats we did back at the weight room. I heard footsteps behind me, but I pushed on. I got to the first bridge and the deep burning in my lungs started to make watery saliva collect in my mouth. Just 3 more blocks and my 1.8 miles of hell was done. We didn't just run our timed run, we made ourselves sprint for as long and as hard as we could, we pushed each other, but it was no secret that our 149 pounder Beau was always gonna lead the pack.
I got back to my room and collapsed on the bed, my chew-filled lip burried in my pillow. It was our post workout tradition that we all put in a chew before going into the shower.
The next morning I tried to move my legs, but they didn't quite respond. I forced myself to try again as the blaring alarm reminded me I had class in a half hour. This time my legs slowly moved toward the edge of my bed and fell helplessly to the floor, aching in soreness. I stood and thought to myself, "It's going to be on hell of a new season"
No comments:
Post a Comment