Why Brown?

That’s a question we’ve all been asked before. And we give the same generic answer that includes something about the “Combination of Great Academics and Athletics”, which is true. It’s the easy answer, an answer that’s quick and to the point and can get our uncles, aunts, and cousins off our back for a little bit at family functions. But what’s the true value of a combination of great academics and athletics? What did we learn about ourselves? What did we gain? What did we lose? What does our Student-Athlete experience really entail and teach us? In 2014 we started on this four-year journey of intense academic rigor and physical strain. We left the comforts of our high schools and entered an unfamiliar environment. Our All-Conference, All-Region, All-State accolades that we worked so hard for basically became irrelevant. We took a leap of faith coming here. Yes, we may have had official and unofficial visits where we got a taste of Brown. However, we didn’t know everything that this journey would bring us. A journey that is often called the “Student-Athlete Experience”.

So what does the Student-Athlete experience look like? To non-athletes, it looks like practice, class, study, eat, sleep, repeat. The only difference between our lives and their lives is that we have practice and competitions. Right? Wrong. What others may not know about the student-athlete experience is that some of our days begin at six in the morning for practice and won’t conclude until our last class ends at eight at night. They don’t know about the 20hr bus rides to Cornell that make us contemplate whether we even want to live this life. They don’t know about the additional hours that we spend in the OMAC and Pizz prehabbing and rehabbing. They don’t see the overbearing expectations that come from our coaches, parents, teammates, and ourselves. They don’t know about having conference championships take up our whole weekend only to have midterms and papers waiting for us on Monday when we get back to school. They didn’t see the tears that come out at night when we lost our season to an injury, when we didn’t receive the playing time that we wanted, when we just can’t seem to put in the right performances. They didn’t hear the conversations that we had with our friends and family when we were overwhelmed by everything and considered walking away from our sport. What people don’t see is the love, passion, blood, sweat, and tears we give for our sports.

So what is the Student-Athlete experience? Well, it’s hard to say as it varies from individual to individual. But it’s definitely at least three things: It is challenging, self-reflective, and enriching. It wasn’t easy. It was difficult trying to balance an ivy-league education with Division 1 athletic rigor while still finding ways to be involved in the Brown community. But it was a process that taught us about ourselves. It allows you to realize how determined, resilient, and capable we can be. We went through great emotional and physical lengths to garner high achievements both in the classroom and on the playing field. Lastly, without this student-athlete experience, we wouldn’t have met and become such well-rounded individuals who are going to go on to achieve great things across the globe. I’m honored and thankful to be a member of this class of athletes, a member of the class of 2018.