Stickin' With Sam

I’m sure you want to hear something about lacrosse, but today I want to first talk about football. Everyone down here is so into football and the games are a really big deal. Richmond won the Division I national championship last year so the team has a big following. We played Hofstra on Saturday and beat them, 47-0.

Everybody tailgates WAY before the game, which started at 3:30. We were at the tailgate at 12:30. You meet a lot of people, the fraternities set up barbecues and everybody plays cornhole and other games.

During the game we sit in the student section — we are not allowed to sit anywhere else — and you wouldn’t want to sit anywhere else. After being here for a while I’ve gotten to know some of the players on the team so it makes the games more fun. One of my friends, Kendall, who is also a freshman, scored a touchdown and it was awesome.

After the game most of the athletes go to D Hall, which is the dining hall, and eat together. It was a great day.

Since I’ve gotten here, because football is such a big topic and many of my friends are on the team, I’ve gotten into football even more than before. I’ve always been a big football fan to begin with, but now I am watching other college games on TV. Sunday night I watched the Giants beat the Cowboys and I was so happy with the outcome. I’m glad the Cowboys were defeated, but it was a little too close of a game for my liking.

We have the college sports channel down here, so I’ve been watching a lot of volleyball, which reminds me of my days playing for Darien. I miss it a lot. No one down here realizes how into it I was. I miss playing it. I keep looking to see if Duke is on because I want to see Phoebe Maglathlin, my teammate at Darien and one of my good friends, play.

One of the things that drives me crazy is The Weather Channel seems to be more accurate back home than down here. They never seem to get the forecasts right. Today they said there was supposed to be a thunderstorm during our practice time and it was hot and humid and sunny instead. We never know how to dress properly. It happens all the time.

After practice Monday our coach told us to show up in the locker room at 6:55 the following morning because we were going to go on a 3-mile run. I was disappointed that I had to wake up early on the day that I get to sleep in. Now it looks like we are going to have these runs at the same time every Tuesday and Thursday morning. I’m not an early person so if I am getting up early and I don’t have my coffee I’ll be an unhappy camper.

Next weekend is Parents Weekend and I’m really looking forward to it and spending time with my parents. I feel like I have been here for so long already.

I was kind of in the groove of not feeling homesick anymore until yesterday, when I talked to my younger sister Charlett on the phone. She was saying how much she really missed me and how much she wanted me to come home. That made me feel sad and I wish I could come home and see her. It’s weird because I am really having a lot of fun down here but at the same time I realize how hard it is being away from your family and how much I miss them.

See you next week!

The big news this week is I turned 18 on Monday and am now officially an adult. For having my first birthday away from home, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was really nice.

I’m used to celebrating with my family but my mother sent me a whole box of things, including pictures from home, clothes, Twizzlers, which is my favorite candy, some perfume and some really cute and funny cards. So it was sort of like being home even though it was not.

Birthdays have always been a big thing for our family. My mother always buys the number of balloons for the age we are turning and have them in our rooms for when we wake up. We then go downstairs and have our presents table, and she even get us a tiara if we have the guts to wear it to school, though I never did. Then we would have a family dinner with cake and everything.

My mom made it as close to being at home as possible, which was really nice.

My friends took me out to dinner, decorated my room and put up a poster with all the legal things I am now allowed to do, like buy lottery tickets, call infomercials, sign my own forms, go to war, be on Jerry Springer, drive an ice cream truck and vote.

Our conditioning coach knew it was my birthday but I don’t think he really cared because we had a really hard session. We had to push 45 pound weights from sideline to sideline, pushing them with your hand while running behind them. It was really hard and I got a lot of blisters. I don’t know how many times we had to do that.

Then we had to do sprints from sideline to sideline, and quite a few of those. If you came in first you didn’t have to do anymore. The first couple it was like, how can we do these, we are all tired. After about eight I decided I was sick of them and went all out and won. Most of the freshmen were done before the upperclassman and we took a lot of grief for that.

This week practice was really based on defense, and I’m not really a defender so I can’t wait until next week, when we work on attack. Because our conditioning coach, Jeff, said we were not in good shape he had us run for three weeks. Next week we head into the weight room, which I like a lot better.

On Saturday our football team has its first home game, against Hofstra, and we are really looking forward to it. One of our friends, Kendall, is playing so we are going to write his name on T-shirts. I used to go to all the games at Darien that didn’t conflict with volleyball so I am kind of excited to see what it is like down here. I went to one last year during my official visit and it was awesome. It is exciting and our mascot is funny looking because we are the Spiders.

It’s different. Everyone gets dressed up nicely for games. I still have to talk to my teammates about what they are wearing because I am used to dressing casually for football games. That’s one thing that’s different here, my wardrobe has changed. Now I’m not just wearing T-shirts and shorts all the time.

One of the things I am happiest about is my mother is running for selectman in Darien this fall and now I will be able to vote for her.

See you next week!

We officially started our lacrosse season with our first day of conditioning on Monday. It was as hard as I expected it to be. Maybe harder.

Every one of the girls was mentally and physically pushed to the limit. We got timed on three 300-yard sprints in a row — you run from the endline to the 50 and back three times.

I’ve done it before on my own but it is different when you have someone telling you what to do, and doing it three times with about a minute break in beteween. When you do it on your own you don’t really have anyone pushing you, and don’t know it your are totally pushing yourself.

Then we went to drills call gassers, where you are on the sideline, sprint across to the other sideline and back. That’s a half-gasser. We did probably 10 of those. Then we went to full gassers, down to the other sideline and back. We did those about 10 times.

I was getting a little dizzy and questioning when this was going to be over because we were so tired.

We ended with an Indian run, where everyone lines up in a single file and we start at a corner of field. The person in the back of the line has to sprint to the front until everyone has gone through it once.

That was just our first day of conditioning.

Wednesday’s session was even harder. Not only did we have conditioning, but we also had a competitive practice with our sticks. It was intense having to go from that to conditioning.

It’s too early to tell how I stack up with the rest of the team. I’m still getting the hang of things but I feel pretty good about my play so far.

Stephy is making everyone feel a lot more comfortable, she’s joking around with us and she makes us feel better. She’s asweome. She has so much energy and she gets personal with you, pulling you aside to tell you what you did wrong and is very encouraging. I was a little nervous at first because the coach who recruited me resigned, so I didn’t know what to expect. But I feel much more at ease now.

Athletes are assigned mandatory study halls for two hours from Monday-Thursday, so I am getting to read a lot, and I hate reading. I guess this is a good thing. Having the study hall helps me to do my work or else I’d probably lie on my bed all day.

I’m taking ceramics, which I did in high school for two years, but I’m still getting adjusted to the way my professor teaches compared to my high school teachers. I miss them a lot.

With all of my schoolwork and lacrosse you probably would not think I’d have time for any fun, but I do get my taste of the social life. My teammates are encouraging about taking us out. So I am getting some fun in.

The panic from the swine flu I wrote last week about seems to be dying down. It turned out the number of cases was not as high as we were told, and a lot of it was just rumors. No cancellation of school for us!

I’m excited to tell you that I finally turn 18 on Monday. I’ve been waiting for this for what seems like five years. We have practice and conditioning first but I’m sure I will do something with my teammates and some friends in my dorm after. Hopefully I’ll have some energy left!

See you next week.

Of all the things I thought I would have to worry about during my first weeks at college, the last was swine flu. Right now there have been 12 cases on campus, and if it gets up to 20 classes are going to be cancelled. Fortunately I don’t know anyone who has caught it. I’m not scared but I don’t want it to impact me or the start of lacrosse.

I’m nervous if I catch the flu I could lose days of practice and opportunities to show my new coach how I can play. It will set my level of play and physicial abilities back behind the other girls, which I don’t want to happen.

Only I would worry about how something like this would affect my sports rather than my physical health.

Everyone on campus has been talking about the flu, but I’m really not that worried about catching it. I’m washing my hands a lot and trying to limit contact with other people’s possessions.

Things have really started to heat up with lacrosse this week. The team is getting united and more comfortable with our coach, and we are really getting into the swing of things. Our coach is really energetic and excited for the season, and she is making me feel the same way. Coming in not knowing the coach made me nervous but I’m definitely more excited to start.

We started testing on Monday, which consists of all the basics — vertical jump, broad jump, the 10, 40 and 300 yard dashes — and upperclassmen tested their lifting. This gives the coach an idea of our condition. I have to improve on some things but I’m feeling comfortable compared to the other girls. I definitely have to improve my speed, but I’m not worried about the lifting part because I’m a pretty big girl compared to the others, and playing on the Darien volleyball team, where we lifted a lot, definitely prepared me on technique.

I’m excited to get my lacrosse gear and see my name over my locker so it feels more official. All the girls on my team are so awesome and I couldn’t be happier with that.

In high school they prepared you for classes as if you were going to a Big 10 school, where it is 60-plus kids and they make you think you will be on your own with no support from you professors. That’s not the case here at all. The professors are very personal, they want you to succeed and they do care about you. I was nervous in the aspect that the teachers in high school made it seem like you have to fend for yourself, but that is not the reality at all.

I had to write a paper for my history class and I guess I did some things wrong, which should be expected because I am not the best writer, and my professor wrote on the bottom of my paper to come see him. At the end of class I went and talked to him and he was totally understanding. I explained why I wrote what I wrote about, and he said I just needed to change a few things and then to come back and see him and he would help me through it. I thought that was so awesome. It definitely made me comfortable. He’s a great professor. From the first day he had me intrigued, which doesn’t usually happen to me in the classroom.

Our first fall practice is next Wednesday so next week I will be able to let you know if I survived it.

Hopefully I will have avoided the swine flu as well.