This column is part of an ongoing series documenting two-sport athletes at Brown. Sarah Demers '07, a member of the women's swimming team, also played on the women's lacrosse team her first year. Part of her wishes she still did.
We live in an age of specialization. By the time they turn seven, many kids have already made a decision on what one sport they will focus on, have gone to all the camps, own all the gear and already know what college team they plan to play for. I specifically chose not to specialize. I remember walking into swim practice in middle school with dirt smeared over my legs and bruises on my arms from soccer practice. My coach would just look at me and laugh.
I would go to basketball practice with my hair frozen from the cold because I didn't have time to dry it from the pool. All my friends were swimmers or soccer players or played tennis. I wanted to do them all ... so I did.
I continued through high school participating in three sports. I was never the best at anything and I usually pulled a muscle when I ran that first suicide at lacrosse practice after spending the previous two months in the pool, but I never regretted not focusing on one thing. I was having too much fun to stop.
Soccer let me hit people. The water was my second home. Lacrosse provided the incomparable thrill of catching the ball on the run and taking off towards goal. Why give all that up just because of college?
Could I have been better at a specific sport had I focused on just one? Should I have spent my spring working on my flip-turns instead of trying to perfect my left-handed cradling? They do say practice makes perfect.
But I prescribe to a slightly different school of thought. I believe if you are passionate about something, do it, no matter what the sacrifice. And trust me - there are sacrifices.
I came to Brown to swim. After the six-month swim season of my first year ended, I decided I was still not ready to give up lacrosse. So I walked onto the team. I had missed all of preseason and already a few of the spring games. I hadn't held a stick in a year and I didn't know any of my teammates' names, the plays they ran or the shots they liked to take. But I knew lacrosse and I had missed it.
I rode the bench all that season and I was not a stand-out on the swim team, so a lot of people questioned my sanity. More than a few people asked why I was putting myself through all the travel, all the early mornings, all that commitment to two teams when I was juggling my first full year of college schoolwork and meeting new friends as well.
To be honest, I enjoyed the challenge. I simply enjoyed competing at the highest level in two sports that I loved, continuing what I had done every year since I was little - being in the pool in the fall, on the field in the spring.
But in college, the season never ends. Everything is year-round. Football players end their season in the fall and then gear up for winter workouts and then spring practices. Runners are outside training when the leaves turn, when they fall off the trees and when they bloom again. Swimmers are in the pool perfecting their strokes and working on their turns from September until school lets out in the spring. And most of these athletes stay here in the summer to continue training so they stay in peak condition for the upcoming season.
You cannot always make every meeting or workout for each sport. You will not have gotten as many repetitions as other players, nor will you have spent as much time building chemistry and trust with your teammates and coaches. You will always have to re-introduce yourself to a sport when you come back.
Although I only did the two-sport deal my first year and am now just focusing on swimming, I will always be a two-sport athlete at heart. If it were at all possible, I probably would have tried to play three sports here.
There are few two-sport athletes in college anymore, let alone in Division I. As a one-sport athlete you surrender certain opportunities, like afternoon classes or making plans on the weekends. But as a two-sport athlete you must really love what you do, because it is too much of a commitment not to.
There are many athletes here that are incredibly successful at both of the sports they play, which is an extraordinary accomplishment given the challenges they must overcome. I, sadly, was not one of them. But in my heart of hearts, I still wish I was coming out in the spring to play both the sports I love.
