Students all over the world devote themselves to sports that always have their own story to tell. Sports can become who a person is both mentally and physically. It helps them develop a mindset that a person will carry for the rest of their life. Each person has their own sport and their own story, but it won’t always last forever. How do people deal with such a drastic change to their lives whenever their time in their respective sport is over? Whether they’ve learned to move on from an era of their lives and gain a fresh perspective.
Devon Moore is a counselor at Waterloo West High School and a West High graduate. During his time as a Wahawk, he played many sports including football, basketball and baseball. Sports were such a big part of Moore’s life.
“For me, when I was growing up, sports were a huge piece in my life. My dad was the football coach here at West for a long time, so it was always a big part of my life,” Moore said. The impact of having sports be such a big part of a young person’s life, for Moore sports helped him mold himself into the man that he is today. “For me, it taught me a lot of good lessons in life that are hard to teach, like work ethic, how to work hard, how to be responsible with your time but it also told me that not everything is guaranteed.”
With nothing being guaranteed it helped prepare him for the struggles he would face for his life after sports. His football career ended in college where he was left at a standstill of not knowing what he wanted to do. Moore had initial ideas such as being a history teacher but eventually he lost interest. “I kind of went through the process and realized that’s not really what I wanted to do, so the plan changed which it does for most people.”
The emotional impact it had on Moore was something he hadn’t experienced. Learning lessons from these experiences and being able to apply them into your life is crucial to succeeding in life. “It wasn’t easy, you get that competitive drive that you always attack everyday with teams, and for me that was kind of just done. But then you figure out how to apply that into your life after sports,” he says.
Moore eventually found a profession that managed to mesh with who he was as a man and what made him excited. “When I do counseling, I still get to work with a team everyday here and I still get to be involved in a competitive atmosphere with coaching.”
Nathaniel Kline is a senior, 1st team all conference running back in football. The multisport athlete is in his final year of high school and has made the decision not to play sports in college. Kline has played sports for more than half of his life, and recently he has decided that it was time to hang up his cleats and leave his sports career in high school. “I always grew up around sports, and they were always something I looked forward to. A lot of my best memories were with or around sports,” says Kline.
The decision behind not playing sports in college was a tough one for Kline as he had originally planned on going onto the next level of his football career in college. But after a lot of time reflecting on his future, he ultimately decided on not playing in college. “Football was my original plan. After touring through some of the schools I had gotten offers from, I realized it wasn’t really where I wanted to be.”
The mental and physical struggles of doing sports for most of your life are not a small task to handle, Kline thought. “Four more years of football, especially in college, is really hard on you mentally and physically and I thought it was time for me to turn to a new chapter of my life,” he said.
Kline’s life post-football was full of uncertainty, a mix of not knowing what he wanted to do and what he needed to do. The competitive side of life that comes with playing sports was just gone. He returned to swim after a hiatus in his junior year. “The competition was a big part of why I came back to swim, I wanted something after football to fill that need for competition.”
When reflecting on whether or not he would ever regret not playing sports in college, Kline stated, “I don’t think I’ll regret it. Some people have a great experience in college while playing sports, even in small schools, but I see that most people I ask who played sports in college always said that they wished they had a regular college experience without sports, no football, no small school, just go to a state school and spend their time there.”
Kline’s plans for college, however, are still a bit uncertain. For now, he is planning on going into an open major program and hoping that he will find a new passion while he is there. “Maybe I would go into something in the medical field. I wouldn’t want to be a doctor, but that’s an avenue that I’d want to take,” he says.
Everyone has their path after high school. It’s just up to you to pave that path for yourself.
