A Letter To Our Varsity Athletes

This time of year is always a little bittersweet.

One by one, you start heading back to school. Back to your teams, your teammates, your classes, and another season of doing the thing you’ve spent so much time preparing for.

And for us, the gym gets a little quieter.

Before you go, I want you to know just how proud we are of you.

Not just because you’re playing your sport. Not because of the PRs you hit this summer, how much stronger you got, how high you jumped or how fast you ran.

We’re proud because we’ve had the opportunity to see a side of this journey that most people don’t.

We saw the early mornings.

We saw the days you came in tired, sore or probably wishing you could be anywhere else.

We saw you train after practices, work or anything else you had going on.

We saw the great days. We saw the shitty ones too.

And above all else, we saw you KEEP showing up.

That’s the part people don’t always see.

Everyone gets excited about the PRs, the highlight plays, the starting spots and the big moments.

We do too.

But we know what came before them.

Hundreds of really ordinary days.

Days where nothing particularly exciting happened. You came in, did your work, got a little bit better and went home.

Then you did it again. And again. And again. And again.

That’s training.

And in a lot of ways, that’s sport too.

There are going to be days this season where everything clicks. There will probably be others where absolutely nothing does.

You’ll have big wins. You’ll make heartbreaking mistakes. You’ll have games you’re proud of and games you’d rather forget. There will be days when you feel like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be and probably a few where you question the whole damn thing.

And when that demon of doubt creeps into your head and starts whispering nonsense, stick to basics.

Just keep showing up.

Just keep doing the work.

Just keep stacking days.

You don’t need every day to be extraordinary. You just need enough ordinary days pointed in the right direction.

But there’s something else I hope you remember.

Enjoy it.

Compete your ass off. Chase whatever goals you’ve set for yourself. Try to win. Take your sport seriously.

But don’t take the experience for granted.

Enjoy the bus rides. The locker rooms. The road trips. The teammates who drive you nuts but somehow become some of your closest friends.

Enjoy walking into a gym or onto a field wearing your school’s colours.

Enjoy the fact that you get to do this.

Because eventually there will be a last practice, a last game and a last time putting on that jersey.

You probably won’t know which moments you’ll miss until they’re gone.

So while you’re chasing what’s next, don’t forget to appreciate where you are right now.

As coaches, we spend a lot of time talking about preparing athletes for competition. Getting stronger. Jumping higher. Moving faster. Becoming more resilient.

But this is one of the best parts of the job.

Watching you leave.

Watching you take all those hours of work and go do something with them.

So go compete.

Be a great teammate.

Take some chances.

Do some things that scare you.

And when things get hard (because they will), remember this:

You’ve already proven time and time again that you can do hard things.

You’ve prepared for this. Now go enjoy it.

We’ll be watching.

And when you’re back home, you know where to find us.

Go be great.

Matrixx