This year, several athletic teams at Marlborough have found new players in old students, as seniors who have never played a sport in middle or high school have decided to join an athletics team for the first time. This includes Mary-Helen’15, who joined track and field this year as a long distance runner and a thrower, and Layla’15, who joined the lacrosse team. Mary-Helen said one of her friends, who had been on the track team last year and is the co-captain of the team this year, joked that she should join track. Incidentally, Mary-Helen decided that she would join the track team despite lacking experience in the sport and participating alongside other athletes who have spent years training.
“I realized that would actually be really fun, and I also just wanted to get into the habit of exercising before I went off to college,” she explained. Mary-Helen describes her experience in track and field as “tough, but really fun.”
Mary-Helen found that she felt less pressure playing a new sport her senior year than she probably would have had she had more prior experience in track and field.
“I feel, obviously, a little incompetent, but I feel like it’s nice because people understand,” Mary-Helen admitted, going on to say that although her coaches didn’t hesitate to push her as much as anyone else on the team, she knew that they were very understanding of her situation because of her lack of experience.
Zoe’15, who, alongside Sarane’15, joined the basketball team this year upon hearing about it from her friends, had a similar experience; she says that her team and coaches were very accepting and understanding.
“They’re so helpful. You don’t get yelled at at all, like you’re in a special category and you just kind of get to do whatever you want. You learn a new sport, and they all help you do stuff, and they teach you everything,” Zoe explained.
Like Mary-Helen, Zoe also joined track and field this spring, in concurrence with her primary sport, softball, with her future college lifestyle in mind; because she has no plans to play any sport in college, she was concerned about her fitness habits after she graduates from high school.
“I’m not a good runner, and I get tired really fast, so hopefully I’ll be conditioned enough so I can run on my own in college,” Zoe said.
Other seniors, including Linzey’15 and Erika’15, rejoined a sport they previously played purely for the purpose of enjoying the game. In Linzey’s case, she rejoined the soccer team her senior year after having quit two years before to focus on softball.
“I wanted to do something fun senior year, and soccer has always been fun,” Linzey commented. She said that part of the fun came from the lack of pressure she felt from playing soccer her senior year, especially after she decided to focus more on a different sport after her freshman year.
“I wasn’t really trying to pursue soccer as an outside school activity. I just did it for fun,” she said. As a result, she found that playing soccer in her senior year was more fun than playing soccer in her freshman year.
