I miss the smell of subway cars. Every spring afternoon for four years my teammates and I would take the one train to Houston Street where we would switch to the M21 bus heading east towards the most inconvenient collection of baseball fields in New York City. Playing ball at Stuyvesant High School for a team that had no home field required many epic schleps around the City, and I loved every minute. The bonds that are forged among teammates while huddling together -- tight baseball pants and all -- on different modes of sweaty public transportation cannot be underestimated.
It has been three years since my last experience with competitive team sports. A 7-2 loss to Telecomm in the Round of 16 of the 2004 New York City public school baseball playoffs put an end to my athletic career, just like that, I was past my prime (only in terms of team sports, ladies). It is true friends, I am, indeed, "over the hill."
I have come to terms with my status as a perennial high school athlete and have channeled my competitive nature through other pursuits "-- academics, the job hunt, pong, etc.
In fact, I have noticed this commonality among the many former high school "studs" (at least we all remember ourselves as such, don't we?) who roam this snowy tundra of a college.
It is painfully difficult to reach the realization that we will know longer be the athletic specimens we once were, a fact to which, I have no doubt, our fall athletes can now attest. One trip to the fitness center will clearly paint this depressing picture, as even the casual observer would notice the plethora of high school team shirts donned by all those, like myself, who long for the days of old.
Yet while our statuesque figures may disappear, our competitive instincts will always rage deep within. I have found there to be many paths to competitive fulfillment at Dartmouth.
Intramural sports, for one, are always a wonderful reminder of how far we've fallen from our athletic peak. Playing soccer against a bunch of Dartmouth cross country runners is not fun, let me tell you.
As the intramural basketball season fast approaches (I will be participating in the elite Granite Division, of course), I cannot help but lament the fact that now I will lose to Gamma Delta Chi by 30 points, in contrast to New York City public school powerhouse Fredrick Douglas Academy. (Seriously though, it's not fair that you pack your team with football players. Stop it.)
The corporate recruiting process is another example of an endeavor embraced by an exceedingly high number of former athletes.
Besides the crapshoot for medical school acceptance, corporate recruiting is probably the most nauseatingly competitive experience one can have at Dartmouth. So when many of us "formers" (I prefer this nomenclature to "nonners") realize that we will never be 6'11" and a career in the NBA will remain a childish fantasy, Goldman Sachs (or Bain Capital? Hi, boss!) naturally becomes the second-best option.
And what is a list of non-varsity competitive undertakings at Dartmouth without pong? Pong brings out the best and the worst -- well, mostly the worst -- in the sportsmen among us. One word: Masters. (And do not think I have forgiven SAE's B-team. You know who you are.)
If there is one message to be taken from this expose in lost athleticism it is this: I am wildly jealous of all those at Dartmouth who have been lucky enough to continue living the dream. As any senior will agree, our four years of glory pass by much quicker than we would ever have wanted. them to.
So whether it is the odor of your team's locker room after an overtime thriller, the look of your ripped-up hands after rowing down the Connecticut River, or waking up for a 6 a.m. practice two seasons before your first regular season baseball game, remember these times.
I know I will always remember the smell of the subway cars.
