ELItorial

For the love of the game?

My roommate—one of my closest friends—is an athlete. That means I eat dinner with an athlete, go to the library with an athlete, go out on the weekends with an athlete, and share clothes, jewelry, dreams and fears with an athlete. I know my roommate almost as well as I know myself, but the inner workings of an athlete's life still remain a mystery to me. I can empathize with her academic stress and boyfriend traumas, but I can't picture myself in her goalie pads on the field, dealing with the pressures of the team, the game, the life of varsity athletics.

V. STEPHANIE CARENDI/YH

I've played team sports since high school and have been playing competitive badminton since age 10—I like to think I know what it is to feel the heat of the game, the thrill of winning, the bittersweet pleasure of sacrifice for the team. I've sat on my share of benches and scored my share of goals. I've dealt with frustrated coaches and back-to-back practices. I've even heard: "Stop the damned ball! How are you planning to get to college?" But I don't remember anything like the complete dedication my roommate has to her team or the fierce emotions that the sport draws out in her.

Does she really have options about the kind of life she leads? Is a varsity athlete ever free to choose outside of the framework that athletes are given to work with? And if she does, will everything and everyone around her indicate or declare that the choice was wrong? We after-school soccer amateurs and aerobics class dropouts may be able to understand what drives an ordinary person with an extra long stride into the quest for a 400-meter dash record. But we cannot comprehend the immense centrifugal force that binds the athlete to the hope of success, effectively blinding her to life outside the sport. We can't understand, and thus often condemn, her sacrifice of "the more important things in life"—academics, well-roundedness, social development—for a way of life that chews her up and spits her out, perhaps throwing in a trophy or two along the way.

As I watch my roommate wake up in the middle of the night, clutching her knees in agony, I don't think of the great block save she made in the last game. And when she sprints from morning lift to class, leaving 20 minutes early to make it to practice, then lab, then section, I doubt that she is getting the full Yale experience—time management skills notwithstanding.

And then I try to look at the varsity athlete's life through her eyes: the indelible bond formed within a team, through the sweetest surprise victories and the agonizing overtime defeats and the sense of dedication, perseverance and self-control that playing a mere game, such as high school junior varsity tennis, can never teach. I look at these benefits and I see clichés; I see sentiments that are worthy, but not worth it. But that's because I just can't understand.

If I were her—if I were tearing up my body for the frustration of seeing someone else start, if I were giving up an afternoon art class for practice or my social life for the fall season—I would take a long hard look at my situation and quit. I would leave the team and pursue other parts of my life, sure. I would cringe at the thought of being a quitter; my parents and friends would also be disappointed. But because I was not defined by the sport I "played," everyone would get over it.

Should my roomate quit? What is the line an athlete has to cross before she decides that she is giving too much? And what happens afterwards, should she chose to leave? I assume that I would be able to get on with my life precisely because I am not a varsity athlete—I could easily imagine taking myself out because I could never put enough of myself in. But for someone who offers up her life—to an extent that I can't imagine—quitting is not an option (a cliché, but a true one) or it is the end of a life (and it is doubtful that a better one will follow.)

My roommate comes hobbling in at 9 p.m. every night and collapses on the couch, half-heartedly leafing through a textbook. She is exhausted, annoyed, and depressed. But I ask her how practice was and her face lights up. She'll go through the day's drills with more energy than I have for my gossip du jour. Then I go next door and talk with a former Eli football player whose standard response to people asking him why he quit is that he "lost the love for the game." How clichéd—but how true. My roommate might still be on the bench with swollen knees next weekend, but I still won't know how good it feels to truly love the game.

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