Smith student-athletes are always the campus punching bag. I read countless threads on the Smith Confessional complaining about how student-athletes have “huge egos,” “major attitude” and of course, collectively have “one brain cell.” But do you even know the true struggle of being a student-athlete? It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and wearing groutfits to class. Let me walk you through the day in the life of a student-athlete and decide for yourself if we really have it easier than all you Non-Athletic Regular People (NARPs) in the handbell choir or whatever you all do with all your free time.
You don’t wake up until your third alarm, effectively annoying the fuck out of your entire floor and reminding them of your dominance as an athlete and that your sleep schedule is way more important than everyone else’s. Your late start leaves you with 15 minutes to get dressed and sprint to Ainsworth before 6 a.m. lift. You head out the door, slamming it behind you. God. Your life is so hard.
You arrive at Ainsworth three minutes late and have to avoid eye-contact with your failed situationship who is working the equipment booth on your way in. You try putting on the weight you did just last week for your front squats but it feels entirely too heavy and you have to bail out, making an extremely loud noise. Everyone turns around and watches as you shamefully reduce the weight and try again. The weight lifting class that is scheduled after your lift slot is waiting outside the door, so you make sure to put in one real pull-up to show them how a real athlete lifts.
You decide to shower at Scott to get an early start to your day and avoid walking all the way back to the quad. Once you’re in the shower, you realize that you forgot your shampoo and conditioner and must use the decades-old soap that is a radioactive shade of blue. You also forgot a towel and have to decide whether you are going to dry off with paper towels or your dirty shirt. Thankfully, the outfit you picked out this morning is just a sweatshirt and sweatpants with your team name on it, plus a “choose your hard” t-shirt underneath, so everyone will know that you worked out this morning and are superior to all of them.
You quickly grab to-go breakfast at Tyler (Just Egg and honeydew melon!) and run to Ford for your 8 a.m., arriving exactly two minutes late, so everyone stares at you like you killed their dog. Your hair is still dripping and you are carrying not only your extremely heavy backpack with your team name embroidered on, but a tote bag of all your sweaty clothes. You sit down in the one open seat and try not to notice the way people slightly move their chairs away from you. They’re probably just jealous they aren’t as ripped as you.
You start to take off your extremely cool team puffer jacket while you settle in your seat, but the zipper gets caught, so you are forced to stay in it for the entirety of class and sweat profusely while trying your best to participate. The discussion is a little bit difficult to follow because your head is actually full of rocks, and you only got into Smith because of your incredible athletic prowess and strikingly good looks.
After a long day of head-scratching classes and side eyes from NARPS clearly admiring your chiseled jawline, you trek back to Ainsworth for 4 p.m. practice. At practice, your coach reminds you of how pitifully you did at the last competition, and you promise that you are focused and ready to go for this weekend. You end up underperforming and still somehow have your heart rate at the equivalent of a heart attack for the entirety of practice.
If you’re on crew, you may have literally fallen out of your boat into the freezing Connecticut River and were then forced to walk around campus in a soaking wet glorified onesie. If you’re on swim, you get to sport flaky skin and dry hair and that incredible chlorine smell! If you’re on lacrosse, say hello to permanent goggle imprints on your face and arms and legs littered with bruises. But this is the price you must pay for the incredible DIII clout you’ll talk about ’til you die.
By the time you’ve escaped your three-hour hell of a practice, all of the dining halls except Tyler and Comstock are closed. You try to order Campus Center dinner, but they’ve decided to serve an experimental dish that mixes three different types of cuisine served over french fries. When you arrive at Tyler on the verge of passing out because it’s 8 p.m. and you haven’t eaten yet, you discover they are serving “XXXBeef Stroganoff.” You check out the salad bar instead but only find a few moldy bell peppers and something labeled “rainbow chia surprise.” No protein here. Smith obviously couldn’t care less about your #gainz.
After dinner, it’s time for the library. You have forced all of your group project members to meet at 10 p.m. to accommodate your practice schedule. When you arrive unshowered, you remember that you are stupid and incapable of contributing, so you tell them you have to get up early for practice tomorrow and walk back home to the quad.
Before you drift off into some much deserved sleep, you remember to text your current hook-up that you are feeling too “emotionally unavailable” to be in a relationship right now. Division III is an intense lifestyle and you can’t have girlfriends messing up your future career as the star member of the adult soccer rec league.
Anyways, Valentine’s Day is coming up and you can definitely find someone new to string along for three weeks at the Wilson Heartthrob party. You found your initials on three “hottest athlete” Confesh threads, so you know you’ll be a hot ticket item!
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