, At the end of Winter term at Dartmouth, the campus empties out. Relieved to be done with exams and the cold, students head exuberantly to the tropics, gleefully to the mountains or quietly to the familiarity of home. Hanover is left with a smattering of townspeople and professors. The only Dartmouth students left are the spring athletes, whose work has only just begun.
The men's lacrosse team spends eight days of our spring break training and playing games in North Carolina. During the day, the team practices, eats and watches game film together. At night, the players break up into smaller groups.
In each room of the hotel we stay in right outside of Chapel Hill, one will find a different scene. Some guys sit in bathtubs full of ice water to regain their legs after playing in the 90-degree heat, blasting music or reading magazines to distract themselves from the intense cold. A group of seniors, to lighten the mood and to counteract the intensity of March Madness pools, gather after dinner to watch romantic comedies.
Believe it or not, even lax bros have a soft side. Others lay low with their roommates, trading stories about high school or analyzing the last game. Each man does what he needs to do to get himself ready, mentally and physically, for another day of practice and scouting opponents.
Every player, and for that matter every athlete in general, has a trouble spot on his or her body, some joint or muscle that's taken one too many beatings. For me, it's my back. Paying attention to posture and taking several 20-minute breaks from my day to stretch and do yoga is my body's requirement for playing lacrosse every day.
For a long time, I resented my back problems as a nuisance, an unlucky break. None of my teammates had to learn yoga or see a physical therapist just to be able to play.
The natural reaction is, of course, to turn away from the pain and pretend it doesn't exist, to push through and tell myself it'll be fine without my stretching routines. The rehab work is slow, boring and lonely. I can think of a million things I'd rather do than sit in a room by myself, staring at the wall as I try to get my hip flexors to release.
Objectively, though, I know its benefits. I know that taking two 15-minute breaks out of my day to stretch and relax my muscles pays off in the long run. Creating space between vertebrae and unhinging tight muscle groups creates a sense of calm, allowing me to focus better in class and work harder with less strain in practice. My breath, which often feels stuck in my chest, can course freely throughout my whole body.
If anything good has come of my back problems, it's been learning how my body heals and how badly my body needs healing, even on a daily basis.
After our second game in North Carolina, we wrap up spring break with a trip to Harvard Stadium to play our biggest rival. After a day off from practice, we feel fresh, energized and ready to play our best. All signs point to a win and there's a crowd of over a thousand in attendance but we lose, 15-10. It's hard to feel anything but the stinging disappointment of a third loss to Harvard in four years, other than, of course, the pain in my back.
Later that evening, the night before I head back to Dartmouth for my final term, I'm sitting on a hotel bed in Boston with my two brothers, watching some police movie from the '90s on the TV. Stiffness is settling into my legs. My bad ankle is starting to swell. My back, thanks to a few Harvard defenders, aches like I got hit by a truck. Going through the game in my head, I think to the last moment of the day when our coach told us, as he always does in his post-game talks, to "do what we gotta do to come out flying on Monday." I stand up and fold my upper body over my legs. A cracking noise comes from the tight joints in my low back as I come back up to standing, breathing deeply.
