Whether you played a Division I or a Division III sport in college, once you graduate four years of undergrad, your athletic career comes to an end (unless you are one in a million that go pro). Just like the NCAA commercials, this is for the 40,000 college athletes that are going pro in something else. Here’s a list of things each of us ex-collegiate athletes can commiserate with.
1. When your alarm goes off in the morning for work, you think you’re late to the weight room and are going to get your ass handed to you on the track.
2. Weight room songs will always be that; reminders of 5am workouts.
3. At the gym, you silently judge the amount of weight the girl/guy next to you is lifting. And you cannot have them lift more than you.
4. You become wayyy too competitive at mini golf. It may even cost you a friend or too.
5. You are the better than all the guys on your co-ed sports team.
6. You “race” your co-workers to the fridge, printer, bathroom, etc.
7. You insist on lifting heavy items all by yourself. And injure yourself by doing so.
8. It kills you inside when someone on your co-ed softball team doesn’t understand what tagging up is.
9. You join a co-ed kickball team and want to schedule practices and post-game strategy huddles. Everyone else just wants to go to the bar to drink.
10. You have more athletic t-shirts and shorts than you do proper business attire.
11. You still have dreams about the game winning play and nightmares about drills at practice.
12. Your coach telling you to “get your head out of your ass” still haunts you and you think your boss may tell you that next time you “mess up.”
13. Denial of your decline in physical ability.
14. You are sore from yoga. Or just from being on your feet from a work event.
15. You squat to play with your dog or toddlers and it takes a bit too long to stand back up.
16. You compare every real life and work situation to “that time when I played (insert sport) in college.”
17. You make excuses for reasons to not go to the gym i.e. happy hour.
18. You wish your co-workers and new grown-up friends could understand your inside jokes and made-up words only your teammates will ever understand.
19. You finally realize you can’t eat like you used to in college. Or you don’t come to this realization and your pants get a bit too tight….
20. You show off scars and pictures of bruises to impress people.
