Dear Senior Me,
Before entering your senior season in 2018-19, you learn something about yourself – that you have the ability to be better than you were your junior year. You will work harder, and you will get better.
Coming off your junior year, you are going to feel more confident than you ever have. You are going to be ready, eager and excited to see what your senior year has in store for you.
The team was confident. You could feel it on the court – the excitement.
And the senior class of
Erika Bean,
Megan Huff and
Sarah Porter that you were going to share the court with was a senior class you wouldn't trade for the world because of the connection you have on and off the court.
Going into our senior year, you are going to want to go the extra mile to be there for your teammates on the court, but off the court you are going to start feeling anxious. The real world was calling and college basketball was coming to an end. We were spoiled in college, and to be honest, you will have a feeling of not knowing what to expect once that part of your life is over.
Your senior year will start off with a winning streak that will make you and your teammates realize all of the potential the season has. The work that was put in during the summer and the commitment to making the season great will all come into play as we go undefeated in non-conference play.
Then it will happen. When you first go down in the game against Arizona State, you won't want to believe it was your ACL. You might be in denial, but when you go into the athletic trainer's office the next day, you will know you are about to get the worst news of your life.
How could this happen to you? That question will go through your mind a lot during this time. Even thinking about basketball will frustrate you.
You will go through a lot of emotions. You will cry, you will not want to accept it. You will feel like you let your team down – which will hurt the most.
But after the breakdowns, after the emotions leave,
you will accept it. Your support system will lift you up, your teammates that have gone through the same thing will be there to carry you, and you will go from defeated to motivated to attack physical therapy every single day.
Physical therapy is hard. It will test you, but you will also learn to celebrate small victories. At the start of the process, you won't believe that you can achieve anything, but slowly, you will be able to bend your knee, then do a straight leg raise – and then you will run, forward toward your goals.
You will learn so much about yourself during this journey – as a person and as a teammate.
You will learn to love basketball even more, but will also teach you to love life outside of basketball too, because there is so much more to life than just basketball.
This experience will make you realize that you are strong enough to make it through anything, but this journey will test you mentally and physically. You will get through it.
You will spend the rest of your senior season on the bench, and it will be hard not being on the court with your teammates, but it will let you become a student of the game. You will learn to teach your teammates and yourself, and you will learn how tough you really are.
You will get through your senior season, but the summer will be stressful not knowing if you are going to get a clock extension from the NCAA. You will overthink a lot, but you have to make sure you keep attacking your physical therapy. Stay committed.
One day, you will get a phone call.
All of the hard work, all of the hardships you went through – it will all be worth it.
The news will be overwhelming, but your excitement will overshadow that.
Your teammates, your family, your coaches – everyone who told you to keep going, they were right. Because it will all work out in the end.
Go UTES!
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