The Shaft

I have had a love hate relationship with Track and Field since 1999, when I started doing it. I have always liked it because I was great at it. In high school, I was the best in northern California in 3 events, and that is no bullish. I would tell you to look it up, but then that would require me to put my real name up on here, but I don't think I am going to do that. But I digress, a have always felt a degree of resentment toward Track because I've felt that it took away experiences that I should have had. There were many social things that I didn't get to do because of track, but I will admit that others had it worse (my boyfriend didn't get to go to prom because his MOC meet was the same day).

This love/hate relationship continued and worsened in college. My first year, I went to unnamed school in Maryland and they recked havoc on my body. I gained 20 pounds of muscle and was constantly hurt because my little frame couldn't support all that weight (I went in at 125 left at 140). I decided that I had too much potential in track to just waste away there (I was an high school all American for crying out loud), so I decided to transfer to Cal. I wasn't very learned about the transfer process or anything like that, so I wasn't aware that I could redshirt my outdoor season and add it to my season at the new school, and the coaches didn't tell me. So I was basically running hurt all year. However, that year, 2003 was no doubt the best of my life. Because I sucked at track and was constantly hurt, I paid more attention to my social life. I actually DID things, I had a close group of friends and I was a genuinely happy person.

When I transferred to unnamed school in California , I realized what a mistake I had made, and was bitter the whole time. I was still hurt from my Maryland injuries, and the coaches too no time to try to heal me. I was STILL the second fastest on the team with my injuries, so the coaches decided to run me still hurt. This happened for 2 years, without a mention of redshirting me. Then my last year, when I had 5 more credits left to take, my coach was like, "Maybe we should redshirt you this year". Dude, I have 5 credits, you can't exactly redshirt on 5 credits. I had recovered finally from my injury (after 3 years, dang) and I was tearing ish up. I made it to number three on the unnamed school in California All Time List in one event and am number one on 3 relays and I am on the list in two other events. At my regional track meet, the meet before NCAA's , I made it to the final in one event, and that was the first time, the coaches ever sent me to get treatment from an Olympic physical therapist. Just ignore my ass for three years, and now you wanna give me attention and I had one more damn race left. If that isn't the shaft I don't know what is.

I was thinking about this Saturday, and it made me so mad, I got a migraine. I devoted seven years of my life to track and field and I ended up with the biggest shaft ever man. What makes it worse, is that when I left (May 2006), I was in my prime. I was jumping the farther than I have ever jumped, I was running faster than I ever ran. I coulda taken this year and tried to make it on the pro circuit, and honestly, no bullish, I believe I coulda made it on... but I didn't have anyone to sponsor me, and running track takes money. Plus, I felt it was time to be real about my life and start my adult life, thusly, law school. Yes, I did basically go through college free (I have 2,000 in loans and that's only because I wanted to go on vacation one summer, lol) but I missed out on so much because of track. I coulda gotten better grades, done internships, made good friends, not just acquaintances at unnamed California school. But you know, what's done is done, but it just burns my up to know that I got played big time for the last three years of my life.

Through this experience, I have learned a lot about myself though... and I am appreciative of that, but it still hurts when I look back on it.

Bastards. But I'm not angry.
Conclusion: Don't get hurt in NCAA D1 College Sports.

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Books Are Pretty Durn Helpful

Last year, in my African American Studies class I read "Mama Day", by Gloria Naylor. This is "mos def" my favorite book for two reasons. The first reason is because I absolutly love the way it's written. For me, the mos tinteresting types of books are those that start out in the present and then recount how people got there. It makes it all the more interesting and meaningful when at the end you are back to where you started. The second reason I love this book is because it taught me a lesson that helped me get over 2 year depression about leaving Maryland.

It is not possible to go back and revisit a particular place in time. It is possible to revisit a specific physical place, but once time intervienes... it is literally impossible to return to what was. People change, settings change. This piece of knowledge let me know that even if I went back to Maryland, it wouldn't be like it was my freshman year. So I started accepting where I was and quickly got out of my depression and started excelling in academics and track... doing me basically. LOL. So yeah, I owe a lot to this book because if I had not read that one sentance when I did, there's no telling where I'd be. No no no. I wouldn't be a crack ho or anything... but I probably wouldnt have ended up with my ending GPA or on the top 10 all-time list in 4 events at my school. I mean seriously.

SO the point of this is to say that I am ready to go back to DC/VA/MD finally. I mean before, I wasn't ready. I mean I was, but not mentally. I think before, I just wanted to go back to freshman year, when I knew who I was, when I had the most fun that I had ever had in my entire life, to go back to when people liked me FOR ME and I didn't have to pretend. Now, 95 percent of my friends from freshman year are out of college like me and not around that area anymore. I genuinly did like the area and I am ready to go back and make a new life for myself there.

Plus, there are so many things that I missed out doing while I was there out of fear. Now most people would think... fear of comming out of my shell and stuff of that nature. No I mean fear of being shot (DC Sniper was like 5 miles away from campus), fear of getting bombed (always helicopters and sirens in DC right after Sept. 11... not a settling feeling). I feel stupid now, cuz I only went to one museum and that was because I had to.

This post came up because I was downloading some music... and for some reason, I started downloading all kinds of dance hall from like 2002/2003. I mean seriously, the feelings that rushed back to me were feelings that I never felt after leaving MD. They don't play that kind of music out here. They don't have the same clubs. It is just a lot. And it is not necessarily a place in time that I want to return to, but a physical place. A place where I can like what I like and other people like it too. A place where they play what I like to hear on the radio. A place where people don't judge you as much as they do over here. I cannot wait.