As the school year comes to a close, Swarthmore athletes begin to clear out of their team locker rooms and reflect on their respective season. Cleats, jerseys, sneakers, hair bands – these everyday items trickle out of the Field House day by day, creating space for our mind and bodies to recuperate. So … what do sports mean to us? After a semester of reading, writing, and editing dozens of articles and interviews, the question often crosses our minds. Sports, at various levels and commitments, have simultaneously created and shaped our current senses of self. From the inception of sports in our lives, they have become an outlet, a friendship, a shared laugh in between the gruel of conditioning, and empowerment through gaining and growing fitness levels or muscles. Whether it be through the experiences shared on the Swarthmore women’s soccer team, the hours-long travelling between games, or the childhood moments practicing with our tired but loving parents, we have shared pieces of life that tether us together. Sports, and everything in between, serve as reminders that we have passed through identical doors that open to uniquely trodden paths. Similar, but different.
I stepped onto campus for the first time in August, when the heat threatened to suffocate and humidity stuck shirt to skin. With anticipation to begin the next big milestone of my soccer career, I unpacked my gear into the team locker room with all 30 of my teammates doing the same seemingly monotonous task. When we finished, cubbies were stuffed with backpacks and back-up cleats, post-it notes and pens, loose hair ties and phone chargers. Turf beads that had slithered their way indoors infested the floors. An actual stray brick propped our locker room door slightly ajar at all times. This locker room would be the room where I would meet my closest friends, hopefully lifelong buddies. This would be the room where I would laugh and joke and scream to pre-game music. But this, too, would be the room where we’d change in silence after a tough loss or I would solemnly reflect about a poor performance. In this room would be moments where I would wonder if I was good enough to play college soccer in the first place. The locker room would be a place where parts of me would live and integral parts of me would be questioned. This locker room, in some ways, is alive and breathing.
How can 30 young women from all hometowns and backgrounds transform a foreign space into a lived-in home? How do strangers from far away places just “be” together?
Honestly, after all my years of involving myself in sports, I’m still not sure. However, I know that the basis of our connection, of the threads that sew us together, has transcended beyond our commitment to play soccer for the Garnet. Sports do more than just turn people into good athletes and fans; they morph the potential of an individual into a relationship. More than high fives and post-game hugs, we see each other through the joys and pains of sports because we walk through the same doors that lead us forward in our athletic journeys. Similar, but different.
If you look closely enough, you’ll see that moments of shared life go beyond just sports. To our readers and writers, if there is anything to take away from this article, it is to live in the things you love to be and do. Immerse yourself, make yourself at home! Reorganize the furniture and hang portraits and paintings, repaint the walls and put flowers in vases! Find your people, in sports or not, and grow to live with them in a space that grows uniqueness in togetherness. Similar but different!
