Some roles are a lot more glamourous than others. There are girls on my team whose roles
involve scoring points, running our offense, or leading us across various
statistical categories. There are roles (including mine) that aren’t as
exciting. Roles that are about making teammates better in practice, and being
positive on the bench.
Yesterday we had a “role meeting”. Everyone met in the team room and we went around and shared
our roles. We do this so that
everyone knows what to expect from each other and we can help keep each other
accountable.
All this talk about roles got me thinking about legacy,
about what gets left behind after a player graduates. (Remember back in
September when I warned you about my melodramatic end-of-career ramblings?
Well, here we go…). I have
teammates who are going to be in record books, their names on plaques for the
rest of UNB’s history. In case you
haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not one of those players.
I’ve come to terms with that, and I’m okay with it. My
struggle now is trying to figure out how be relevant, how to create something
that lasts beyond my time here.
It’s like the way that I hope (a little shamefully) that every now and
then in the Quest Kermodes locker room someone pipes up with a comment about
how they miss me, or a story about something I did. They’ve moved on, and it should be noted that they’re doing
quite well, but a little part of me hopes that they miss me. I know it’s selfish, but I can’t help
it.
I just finished reading Don’t Put Me In, Coach, a book by
Ohio State men’s basketball walk-on Mark Titus. Titus chronicled his time as a Buckeye on a
blog he created titled Club Trillion.
For the most part he wrote about team shenanigans and the pranks he
pulled on his NBA-bound teammates, all while remaining pleasantly
self-deprecating. He became a sort
of hero for benchwarmers, average Joe’s, and anyone who was ever picked
last. When a player gets in for
one minute and does not record a single stat her stat line reads as a 1
followed by a row of zeros, or, a trillion, and that’s where Club Trillion came
from.
The book really helped me put my role into perspective
because there are players like me on every team. Ones who have embraced their role better than I have. Heck,
embraced it enough to publish a book about it. On my team all of our roles are different, but they are all
of equal value. Sure, we wouldn’t be a very good basketball team if our five
starters disappeared, but we would be even worse if they were the only ones on the team.
I’m not going to make a play to win a game, or lead my team
in a statistical category (except maybe ‘most Trillions’) but that doesn’t mean
that my role doesn’t have value. Maybe Claire is a better captain because of
conversations we’ve had. Maybe three
years from now Chelsey invites a rookie over for dinner when she sees she’s had
a tough week. Maybe Katelyn gets a little bit stronger every day because I’m there
pushing on her. Actually, who am I
kidding, that last one is definitely true, and I have the bruises to prove it.
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This weekend we play on Saturday against St.FX. The game times are flipped so the boys play at 6:00 and we follow at 8:00. Mark your calenders. As always you can get the details at www.vreds.ca
For more info on Mark Titus check out his blog at www.clubtrillion.blogspot.com and before you go out and buy his book for your loved ones just a heads up that it's a little crude (if it were a movie it would probably have a 14A rating)
Allie
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