3 Things I’ve Learned About College Sports
1. Confidence is the most important thing in college sports.
When you play with no confidence you play scared. If you want to play right away you don’t have time to be scared. I specifically remember the practice that flipped the switch for me. Being a redshirt freshman, my confidence wasn’t where it needed to be. I’ve always been a person who likes to see things work before I try it myself, but as a 2nd year (Sophomore), I was already running out of time. I trained all summer using the fuel of not playing a single game in the prior season to drive me. The first practice back I played with the confidence I have always had, and everyone saw the difference. From then on, I started to stack days of good practices and the confidence continued to grow from there. Even the coaches saw the difference. They would mess around with me saying confident Hudson is the best version they’ve ever seen.
Trust me, I’ve been there. Confidence is hard to come by when you are always comparing yourself to others, or even in your own head. If you just worry about yourself and remember the process you had to get to where you are today, that confidence inside you automatically builds.
2. Everybody is like you and better.
Everyone was the best player in when they were high school. You have to work even harder to become the best at the college level. The first practice with D1 talent was one of the biggest shocks I have had in my career. In my high school career I didn’t play against a single person that went Division 1. For club soccer, half of my team went D1 so I expected it to be similar to my club practices. I couldn’t be more wrong. Some of these guys are 22 or 23 years old and have been playing D1 soccer for 5 years now. There are guys bigger, faster, stronger, and more athletic than you. I came from a pretty decent level of club. We played in the league: ECNL. When I got to college, you had guys my age that have been through European teams academies. Others had played for MLS academies since they could walk. The talent here was much better then I have ever played with or against, and ultimately that made me a better player.
3. Mental health is real.
You won’t always have the best game. You won’t always play or start right away. That’s crucial to understand. You need to have someone you can talk to or something you can do to keep you in the right head-space throughout the season. Mental health was a huge thing for me in college. I didn’t get into a single game my freshman year, nor the spring season. Actually, I played in one game for 20 minutes and played horribly. I thought the whole world was against me, and I know this is a very common thing in college sports. On the mental side of the game, I like to surround myself with friends and family who are going to support me no matter what. Another big thing when I got to college was my faith. Growing up I never went to church, never believed in much of any religion. When I came to Marquette, a Catholic Jesuit school, I became very open minded. I started going to Sunday MASS every Sunday I could make it, and really found peace through this. A lot of people say it, but I truly believe that sometimes it’s okay to not be okay.
Nobody’s life is perfect, but if you can have a mindset of, “This is where I am right now, but I’m gonna do anything I can possibly do to reach where I want to be”, you can succeed in not just sports or college, but life in general.
Hudson Torrez, V3 Writer
