And since I am a former student-athlete, I figured I might as well throw in some thoughts and blurbs on health.
Over the next couple of months, I will write about recipes I have made, or attempted, workouts and exercise I have completed, or tried to, and what life is like when you're not worried about beating your personal record, or what your coach, parents, professors, potential employers (I can continue..) or friends might think of your actions, or reactions for that matter.
So, as the blog evolves, I'll leave it up to you to digest this information I put on your hypothetical internet plate. I'll try to keep it snappy, and I'll put my entries on the chopping block before I put them on the table, but I'm not cutting any deals here. The hilariousness and obscurity of life through my own looking glass is to ridiculous for me to keep any sort of pride by not posting.
To start, I better explain that I was a rower at Sacramento State University, the California State University campus in Sacramento. I walked on my freshman year, first day of class, first day of practice and fell in love with the sport. Halfway into my freshman year, I was debating whether or not I was going to commit to the endeavor for the four year long-haul when my novice coach pulled me into her office.
Thoughts of how she was going to say, "I'm going to have to cut you," started racing through my head, but instead of the boot, I got a contract offering me $1,000 per semester for playing the sport for the Hornets.
Floored is an understatement to how I felt. I mean, I was the bench-warmer for one lousy year of high school soccer. Recreational soccer was the extent of my "athletic prowess" and this lady wants to offer me money to be what USRowing.com calls a "superb examples of physical conditioning,"? I could barely run a mile.
So, as a freshman, I sat at the eight, or stroke seat of the better of the two novice boats, setting the cadence, communicating with the coxswain, basically leading the boat. As I moved up to varsity sophomore and junior year, I sat at stroke of the junior-varsity boat, but slipped on a rung up the proverbial ladder to get into the varsity boat when I pulled a tendon in my right forearm during my junior year.
Six days a week for what seemed like a year I got up at 5 a.m. and rode to practice with my teammates only to watch everyone launch their boats and go for a nice row while I went on a daily run, to which my knees hated me for. I had lots of time to think during those weeks and it finally hit me that I've only got one more year left to do what I came here to do - win medals.
I might add that during this time, my coach, who left his career in finance to coach, had been steadily increasing my scholarship money in combination with grants I was receiving from financial aid in order to get me off state and federal loans.
At any rate, since Sacramento State's athletics is a NCAA Division 1 program, I had four years of eligibility to compete.
So, now that my expiration date has passed, the 2008-09 season being my last, hopefully I'll be able to keep some spec of that "superb physical condition," with some shred of dignity. Mostly, this will be my rants and raves about the attempts, hopefully on a weekly basis.
Read on my curious friends!
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