First Love

Have you ever fallen out of love? Maybe you were obsessed with Nutella and ate it uncontrollably for a year until you finally got sick of it and the smell started to make you nauseous. Maybe you watched your favorite TV series religiously, but the seasons strung out for too long and you lost interest. Maybe you were in love in high school, but you moved away to different colleges and the spark died over time. For me, it was basketball.

Before I was capable of walking, I was being pushed in my stroller to Medina High School to watch my dad coach. By the time I was five, I was tagging along with my sister to her AAU practices and shooting at the side hoops in the dusty, old gyms. I was the kid chucking up half-court shots at the halftime of games and doing laps around the gym, showing off my speed to all the fans.  The gym was my playground. When I reached the third grade, I was finally allowed to play in the Wadsworth City League. I can vividly remember this being one of the happiest days of my life. My dad and I walked into the Wadsworth rec center, signed my name on the dotted line and picked up my first uniform, a yellow t-shirt with the name Suns across the front and the number seven on the back. It was official, I was a basketball player.

This was the start of a year round cycle, from fall league, to city league, to travel ball, and eventually AAU. The phrase “off-season” didn’t exist in my vocabulary. Regardless, I loved every minute of it and being good, helped.  The game came naturally to me, not that I’m trying to make myself sound like some type of young prodigy, but it was fun being good at something.  I found my identity in the sport.

As I got older, things changed. The unwavering passion I once had for the game was tested by other priorities (by “priorities” I mean friends and my social life). High school basketball was all about politics and AAU basketball was all about getting colleges to recruit you, neither were the game I loved. I was drowning in expectations. I didn’t understand how something that had once been my release from reality, could turn into my biggest source of stress. It was troubling to think that all of my years playing basketball could be reduced to something as trivial as the division of the college I attended.

When I eventually committed to a D2 school in Pennsylvania, I thought basketball would finally be fun again. It wasn’t. My motives were wrong and I was burned out. I chose a school based on the division and the amount of money they were offering me and I didn’t consider the other aspects that were so important for my future. It wasn’t until my sophomore year, after an ankle surgery that caused me to use a medical redshirt and sit out for an entire season, that I realized my mistake. Basketball is something that I do, it is not who I am. It’s unfair to minimize my identity to one characteristic. Basketball is a very important part of my life, but it’s not my whole life and I will still be Shannon Jack long after my college career is over. It was this realization that helped me fall back in love with my first love.

We all sometimes get trapped in the idea of our own identities. We let our jobs, possessions and hobbies define us, but the person we truly are lies much deeper. When we take a step back and understand that we are so much more than a sport, or a grade, or a nine to five job, or the school we attend, it allows us to appreciate who we are and what really makes us happy.