Thursday, January 22, 2009

Dispelling the Illusion

I had somewhat of an epiphany the other day while driving home. I was talking with Davin about my life and future and ended up talking about the future of some of my teammates. It suddenly hit me during out conversation. It hit me and it hurt. Exactly, how many of my teammates will graduate college? With more than an associates degree? Ouch.

It might be due to the fact that so many of my teammates work. I am curious how many people on Cal's A team have part time jobs. How many of those people (with part time jobs) work more than 10 hours a week. Just off the top of my head the following people on LPC have part time jobs: Ernst, Zip, Charlie, Josh, Bob, Travis, Sticks, Geoff, Harry and Tim. That's more than 50% of our total roster. Ouch.

It might be because of ultimate (the thought makes me cringe). I sacrifice a lot for ultimate as do many of my teammates. It would not surprise me if all of our grades suffer due to ultimate. I probably won't be in tip-top studying shape after santa barbara this weekend. I imagine returning to the bay area sick, hungover and exhausted. Prime studying conditions indeed.

I'm not saying that all LPC players are doomed to never attain a bachelor's degree or higher (that is, in something more useful that a degree in World Religion). But I find it interesting and somewhat depressing that so many LPC players are struggling to do in their 5th year, what many other college students did in their 2nd.

I am in my 5th year of eligibility. And I am still at a community college. I am not the only one. I often wonder, what career will I hold? What career will half my teammates hold? I have heard that Alex Nord works at a Costco so that he might be able to more fully play ultimate. An interesting concept. Sacrificing more pay, more financial stability in order to play a game you love. But his story is different (assuming it's true), he chooses to sacrifice the higher paying job for a job that allows him to compete. I wonder how many of my teammates will have that luxury. Will I?

3 comments:

Jacob "Zip" Serrano said...

Haha part time job? I wish I had a part time job! For the record I work 40 hours a week. I have practice, conditioning (gym), and go to school, 55 hours a week. Attempting to sleep at least 7 hours a night if that, thats 49 hours of sleep.

If there's 168 hours in a week. The total already is 137 hours. That leaves me with about a mere 20 hours to socialize, drive where ever I'm going, eat and do homework, and do things around the house like washing and cleaning. Hmm...I need to make my own blogpost out of this.

Unknown said...

Nord is a computational geneticist who telecommutes to work in San Francisco so he can continue to play with Seattle Sockeye...

Scarecrow said...

Way to ruin my dreams of ultimate stardom while working out of costco...