Ubuntu

I know you didn't think that last post was going to be my last post before Regies. Silly.

The past year or so of my life has been unbelievable. Listing everything that happened would take too long, but in short, it has honestly been a roller coaster ride, in every sense of the word. I mean, you can actually track it through what I've written over the past year. I had meteoric ups and absolutely earth-shattering downs, and like any roller coaster ride, it went by altogether too quickly. Earlier this year, after feeling a bit lost by the events in my life, I turned to someone I consider to be one of my greatest mentors, in every aspect of my life: my high school speech teacher, Ms. Graf. She explained to me that life is a constant cycle of destruction, renewal, and growth. Growing up is about understanding that destruction isn't necessarily bad, and renewal and growth should always be something to look forward to. After chewing on those words for a while, I began seeing my life in these cycles. As is true for a lot of other people, winter breaks me down. Last year was heartbreak, and this year was what I thought was insurmountable academic barriers, with The Future (dum dum dum) staring me in the face. But spring is, predictably, rejuvenation.

Let me explain. That weekend last April drained me. Knowing it wasn't the end of my college career, I wasn't completely heartbroken, but it still hurt. Two springs in a row, we had our chance, and two springs in a row, we were just short, left standing in the train station with our bags swinging at our sides. Feels pretty fuckin' foolish, right? But I wasn't sure I was ready to do that all over again. Like someone who had been burned, I was afraid to play with fire again. I thought about everything I spent that year, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. I thought about the mental fortitude it took to fight through that season, and all the investment it took, and I wasn't sure I was ready to dive headfirst into all of that again. But leaving helped. I spent my summer in the Bay, and didn't think about ultimate at all. You could almost say I didn't really care too much. Then I spent my fall semester in China, where I learned to fall in love with the game, the process, all over again. I had fun when I played, and I looked forward to every time I got to cleat up. Monday night league games invigorated me. You could even say I was grateful to play. It was an electric feeling. But then I came back, and felt like something was missing. Maybe the chemistry wasn't right, after being away for so long, or maybe I had just gotten lazy and wasn't comfortable with the speed and the physicality of it all. I'm not quite sure what it was, I just knew the first two months or so of this spring season were almost unbearable.

I'm not ashamed to say that several times throughout this spring, I've told myself that this was it, that I was walking away soon, that there was no way I could give any more of myself, because I just didn't feel it. If it's not there, you can't force it, right? I've come this close to clicking the "Send" button on more than one q-word e-mails, and then I sit back and reconsider, and always ended up just trashing it. (Haven't I written something about this before? God I'm a flake) You can call me a coward, and you can call me ... (inhale) a quitter. That's okay. But I have gone back and forth about this so many times this year, I can't even begin to explain. It had nothing to do with how much I cared about the game or about my teammates. I love playing, and I love my teammates. If anything, that's why I couldn't keep kidding myself. I couldn't stay and half-ass my way through things because it wasn't fair to my teammates, who wanted it. No, that's not what caused all my second-thoughts. It had to do with the end result. I was terrified about a rerun of last year. I didn't know if I would keep swimming and fighting if I was thrown in the deep end, or if I'd just give up.

Now it's April, and I'm in the deep end all over again. You don't need to know how I got here. Just know that this spring was a fuckin' battle, and I realized I want to keep fighting. I found my fire.

It's about me, it's about love, and it's about my team.

Coming home, I was a little nervous about how I would fit in on the team again. Would the rookies hate me? Would they think I was a total freakshow? Would the vets have grown closer without me? Did I become replaceable? Worse yet, had I been replaced? (parental neglect issues surfacing here, don't mind me)

I wrote something a while back about why I play ultimate, and time and time again, this team is the reason I keep on keeping on. Every time I think I'm ready to throw in the towel, I look at the photo of me on T-Bag's shoulders and in Margaret and Catherine's arms at CI 2008, or the photo of me, Margaret, and Kimmy D at Roll Call '08 hanging on our fridge, or our team photo taken after Sectionals '08, when we came back after a disappointing Saturday for a resounding win over Northwestern on Sunday for second place. I think back to those tournaments and those weekends and those moments, and I can't remember a time when I was mad or sad about it. Like I said, I love playing, and I love playing with my teammates. I love being on the line with them, and I love dominating at tournaments with "Illinois" across my chest.

But the road there is hard. The road there makes you question your commitment, makes you question your abilities, and sometimes it even makes you hate yourself. There are the track workouts, and how you almost agree to deals with the devil just to get through them. There are the nights when you have papers to write and places to be and you just want to sleep, but you've got practice until midnight. There are those days when you're feeling like shit and it's cold outside, but you've got practice that afternoon. There are days so windy you can't hold the disc straight to throw, let alone even throw something that's remotely catchable. There are days where you get to throw #99 and you drop it and have to start all over again. There are days when you play like you've never played before in your life, and it seems like you can't do anything right. There are scrimmages where you're constantly getting called out on defense, and you're constantly dropping the disc or making bad throws on offense. Some days just suck.

But you stick in it, and you keep working, and you stay in it until the very end because that's what it takes to get seven on that line, that's what it takes to dominate at tournaments. You train and you show up and work when your body doesn't feel like it or when you've had a bad day or when you're sick or when you're hurting or when you're busy or when you'd rather be somewhere else, doing something else, because you have to do the hard things to get to do what you love.

That's what a team does for each other.

We spent all spring becoming a team. Becoming a team doesn't mean playing with the same people over and over, or practicing with the same people all year. Becoming a team doesn't mean wearing the same jersey, or identifying with the same name. Becoming a team means a lot more than that. We became a team as we sweated together, as we suffered together through the harsh ground and the dry air of the Armory. We became a team as we held each other up after vomiting in the red trash cans, as we cheered our teammates on as we gasped for breath, hands on our knees and hips. We became a team during those late nights in the cold winter, getting rug burns and losing skin and blood at Irwin. We became a team as we encouraged each other to keep lifting our legs, stair after stair, in Memorial Stadium. We became a team as we rallied around each other, injury after injury, and stepped up when our teammates could not. We became a team as we brutalized each other at practice, shoving, boxing out, fouling, hacking, and laying out, playing to make the other team hate us. We became a team through every single disappointing tournament we played, losing game after game after game at Pres Day and Centex, and losing to Northwestern two weeks ago. We became a team as we watched each other cry last spring in Detroit, as we held each other and felt the other's heart pounding, felt the other's body shaking.

Sophomore year of high school, my team lost the City Championship basketball game we were favored to win against our rival, Lane Tech (suck it, Lane). Senior year, I had a massive asthma attack at cross country sectionals and had to quit half-way through the race. Freshman year of college, we lost to Northwestern in semifinals of Regionals in our own backyard, fresh off of a Sectionals win against Gung Ho just weeks earlier. But none of that compares to April 27, 2008.

Standing on that field last April, with my teammates still crying behind me, under the seemingly appropriate gray skies of Michigan, looking out onto that empty field, "if only I would have ..." running through my head, watching and listening as Michigan State celebrated ... that's when I began to understand. I realized that all those times before, I wasn't really getting it, that I didn't really understand what "wanting it" meant. I didn't give a shit about high school basketball. It was fun, but I did it because I loved the sport, not because I wanted to be good at it. I only ran cross country because my best friend was on the team. I didn't even play in that game against Northwestern when I was a freshman. I didn't get it.

But last year was different from all those years. I worked my ass off. I ran outside of practice, I lifted almost manically, and I threw every chance I got. Hell, Chansy and I threw with cleats on in the Quad when it was snowing. We practiced laying out on the Quad after Econ with ol' Marsha. I ran every track practice like I would never get to run again, and I practiced like it was tourney Sunday every practice. We all did. Each and every single one of my teammates invested themselves into the same goal -- Nationals. We went into Regionals knowing that we had worked unbelievably hard for a shot at Natties, and we were going to take it that weekend. Even after we lost to Michigan in the championship game, we were still focused on that backdoor game. And we thought we had it. Shit man, we thought we had that game locked up. We beat Michigan State twice at Chicago Invite. We were confident. And it turned out to be something completely different. It was dirty and it was ticky tacky shit and it was the things I heard on the sideline, and so I've sort of locked it all out of my memory. But I remember how much it fucking SUCKED to watch and hear someone else celebrate something I had worked so hard for. It actually hurt. Our entire season was gone. Dunzo.

For me, I learned that "wanting it" was not about saying over and over that I "wanted it". "Wanting it" was not even necessarily about sacrifice. "Wanting it" is about doing everything fucking possible to get it. It's about giving everything you have to get what you want, and being completely willing to do more if you're called upon. "Wanting it" is this completely torturous combination of sacrifice, selflessness, bodily torture, mental anguish, and the will to keep fucking doing it, no matter what. Wanting it is telling yourself that there's nothing else, and then playing that way.

From a selfish standpoint, yes, I want this. I want my friends to see me doing something that I love on a national stage, and I want my parents to watch from the sidelines and be proud that everything I've worked for has finally come to fruition. But from a team standpoint, dear GOD do I want this. I want my friends, my family, to go out in the best way possible. I don't want to go to Nationals if it's not with this team.

But we can't go to Nationals alone. No one player will get us there alone. We will go as a team. We don't become a team until we all buy into the idea that in order to be a good team, we need our whole team. A good team rests not on the shoulders of your superstars, but on the efforts and hard work of every player wearing that jersey. Together we are what we cannot be alone.

Becoming a team is about coming together, and knowing that we'll be there for each other when we need each other the most. There's an incredible trust that I have in my teammates. I feel comfortable, no matter who is out on the line with me. I know that we'll play hard for each other, and we'll pick each other up when we need it. We'll throw ourselves at the ground to get that D, and we'll run faster than we think we can to chase that huck down. Every ounce of sweat and every ounce of blood is lost for each other. We play for each other, because we genuinely love each other.

This is it guys. We're going to Obrolin, Brohio tomorrow. We'll know whether we're kissing anybody through the phone or not on Sunday.

Leave NOTHING, because if we don't win, there's nothing after this. There's nothing to save for. So dig deep. Dig deep inside each time you think you're done, and find the will to keep playing. Play like there's nothing left. Play like you love each other. Play like you want it.

This. Is. It. This is what we've worked so hard all year for. Rookies, I know you've never been here before, but after this weekend, you'll get it. You will understand deeply and almost completely what it means to love this team, and do anything possible for your teammates, your best friends, your family.

Man, I love this team.

When I was away in China, I wore a rubber band around my wrist with the score "15-12" written on it to remind me what I needed to work for when I got home. My Shanghai teammates were really cool and I learned a lot from them, but there is no team like Illinois. I am myself when I'm around you guys, honestly, and not a lot of people can say that. I'm completely, 100% myself, no holds barred. Other people might think we're assholes, or that we're ridiculous and overrated and just a bunch of douchebags, in general, but you're my best friends. You're my family. And I would do anything for you, because you've done so much for me.

I have a lion-hearted sense of pride (really not an interesting video if you're not a White Sox fan, but it sends chills up my spine every time), and my hatred of losing is only surpassed by how much I want to win. I have an indomitable will, and an unbelievable heart that exceeds any physical gift that God blessed me with or chose not to give me at all. But possibly most fortunately of all, I have so much love for this team (again, this isn't really interesting if you're not a Bulls fan, but there's a sick layout at 1:21 though), and that's going to drive me this weekend like you won't believe.

We're going to do it this weekend guys.
Let's have some fun, ladies, and let's fuckin' win.

I love you guys.
I dream about holding each and every single one of you close and smiling and crying, celebrating the fact that we've finally made it. I've watched two other teams do that for the past two years, and I've always wondered to myself what it would feel like. I know it'd feel sweet, I know it.
But we have to get there first.

Work hard get bank, baby.
Let's go do it to it.