At a school where people throw themselves wholly into extracurricular activities and the average student is fairly active, varsity sports are bound to be a popular activity of choice. Even though we often seem dwarfed by athletic powerhouses such as state schools, Dartmouth nonetheless takes its varsity sports very seriously we are Division I, after all. Nevertheless, for some, the commitment of being an athlete can sometimes prove too much, resulting in the decision to no longer pursue one's chosen sport. The decision is often a difficult one, as many of us tend to define ourselves by the activities to which we dedicate our time.
Michael Randall '12, a former member of the men's varsity swimming and diving team, decided to stop swimming his sophomore winter after the season was over. Although he was not a formal recruit, Randall had been in contact with coaches prior to arriving at Dartmouth. Randall said it took a lot of time to finally reach a decision on whether or not to stay on the team.
"I had limited conversations with teammates, particularly the captains, but didn't want to set a bad example for the freshmen when the season was still going on," he said. "So I held off the final decision for a while. It required a lot of introspection in that regard, it was primarily a decision I had to make myself."
Randall said that quitting the swim team allowed him to take advantage of aspects of the Dartmouth experience that he might otherwise have missed out on.
"There were a lot of other opportunities at Dartmouth particularly biomedical research that I wanted to pursue," he said. "Being in the lab at 2 a.m. before a 6 a.m. practice wasn't really sustainable."
Similar to swimming and diving, many other varsity sports at Dartmouth allow walk-ons to join the team, and some even train students with little experience in the sport. Gwendolyn Tetirick '13 joined the sailing team as a freshman with relatively little experience, noting that the coaches and team members were very patient in teaching those with less experience.
During her sophomore year, however, as commitments started to pile up, Tetirick made the decision to leave the team.
"It was a tough decision, but eventually I decided that my Dartmouth experience needed to be about a variety of things, rather than a commitment to one activity and one group of people," Tetirick said.
The highly demanding time commitment that is characteristic of varsity sports can be surprising to those who have not participated in that sport before. Marion Ruan '13 attended a crew meeting her freshman fall and soon decided she was not cut out to be a rower. The lightweight men's team, however, was in need of a coxswain, an area in which Ruan had no experience.
As part of the freshman team, which is separate from the rest of the rowing team, Ruan soon found out how demanding the commitment was, with hours of practice every week and competitions on Fridays and Saturdays, which usually meant being gone the entire weekend.
Ruan also described her difficulty in picking up the sport and adapting to its requirements, citing one time early on in her time as part of the team when she sank a boat.
"In the end, I just don't think my personality was a good fit for it," Ruan said. "I didn't feel I could perform at the required level, so the coach and I reached a decision together that it would be best if I left the team."
While students enter teams with varying levels of experience and anticipated commitment, each sport requires high levels of time and effort. The decision to leave a commitment that has become a fundamental component of one's identity is understandably arduous. Perhaps the real challenge is re-finding oneself after relinquishing something that has been the defining factor in that individual's extracurricular life since his or her arrival at Dartmouth.
