For as long as you can remember, tennis has been the thing that makes you who you are. It makes you whole.

It is who you identify as, and has brought you to where you are at this present moment. Before you came to college, you had to put tennis first to give yourself this opportunity.

For your entire career, the addiction and need for competition is what gives you life. The college experience is about the continuation of achieving as an athlete, but it is more importantly about you growing as a person.

College is a place where you not only have the opportunity to work on your game and level of athleticism, but it is about finding who you are.

I would be lying if I said tennis before college allowed me to lead a normal teenage life. Naturally we sacrificed a social life and a normal school life because we put the sport first.

When we didn’t, we felt the consequences on the tennis court. College is the time to live and explore your personality, and to discover what you want to do in life.

Few athletes leave college, compete on the pro circuit, and achieve.

The majority enter a chosen career field and have to adapt without life as a competitive athlete.

A scary but very true prospect.

You know yourself as an athlete. You live for the wins, the losses, the pain, the gratification of overcoming a tough match.

You are the celebrities of the University. You have a skill that few others have, and you pride yourself in the fact you are on the tennis team.

It is very important that while you are experiencing this life, you are preparing for a new one.

As someone sitting here writing this behind three computer screens in a job that tests me on many different levels, I can honestly say I prepared myself to enter this world with my identity as a tennis player taken away.

Adjustment to life as a ‘normal’ human being is not easy. The second you finish that final match in college, you are not a college athlete anymore.

You have to enter the real world and compete with other people that have been preparing for the same specific career field as you, and they will have had more time.

Of course in college you would not be able to succeed as an athlete without sometimes struggling with school or putting it second.

You have not been able to adequately prepare yourself for a specific chosen career field, and you know what? That is ok.

Understand that you are a high achieving and determined person. You would not have got where you are without these traits, and these will be highly respected in the working world.

When college tennis is over, you have to give yourself time to adjust. You have to let yourself find a new identity.

Think about all the abilities and skills you have as a person that will ensure any job you go into, you will be able to succeed, it just may take more time.

You know how to be somewhere on time, you know how to follow instruction, you know how to be a part of a team, you know how to lead, you can persevere through failure, you have learnt to care for others and most importantly, you are competitive and you don’t give up.

So, if you don’t know how you are going to survive without the sport, trust me, you can.

The day I finished my last college tennis match, I left a part of myself on the tennis court that day.

Some days when I am sitting behind my desk I have been at for hours, feeling overwhelmed, tired, frustrated and behind, I remember what got through me tough experiences an athlete.

I remember that I have felt these things before and I got through it once before.

Apply yourself in the field you choose the same way you applied yourself to tennis. Tennis will always be there and you will always be that competitive athlete at heart, but a new chapter in life is not necessarily a bad one.

Journalist and and former Student Athlete Athena Chrysanthou can be reached at athenatennis@siu.edu or achrysanthou@dailyegyptian.com.

Remember the days where you were living out of your tennis bag, trekking from one tournament to another, eating on a tight budget? 

Those were the days where the most important person in your athletic career was you. Back then when you walked onto the court you walked as an individual. You won as an individual. In college, you step on the court with eight other girls behind you and you win for your team.  

One of the hardest transitions you will have in college and especially for tennis is, learning how to be a team player. Tennis is not a team sport and so this transition is not easy, because it’s not about you anymore. 

You have to be prepared to deal with situations as a team and take responsibility for a win and loss as a team. Understand that your energy, level of commitment and discipline is not a reflection of you, but of yourselves as a unit. 

Bad energy is toxic. A disease. It will spread and infect others around you so set negative feelings aside when they arise and do your best not to show them. 

Learn to love the people that you will spend mostly every waking hour with and learn to accept that you are not all the same and you are most likely not all from the same culture. 

Acceptance of one another is a good place to start. Accept that what might be normal in one culture is not in the other.

Be open to learning from your international teammates and vice versa. You will discover and open your mind to cultural customs you didn’t know existed, which will teach you important life lessons and values.

You will see members of your team at their best and their worst. You will spend hours on a cramped bus together, you will eat several meals together and you will grow as people together. 

One of the most difficult things however, is learning how to not let your energy affect and bring down your team. 

When you have been slaving on the court for hours and hours, get to that third set and lose 7-6, sulking in the restroom afterwards is a no go. 

You shake your opponent’s hand, grab a bag of ice and start cheering your brains out for the teammate next to you. Because that is your duty as a member of the team.

You have to be selfless. Put yourself second. Before college it might have been acceptable to throw headphones in and stare out of the window on the road home after a tough weekend. But not now.

It is very easy to fall into the trap of stepping on the bus, putting the beats on and falling asleep. While that is okay for a couple of hours, don’t make it a habit.

Engage with your teammates. Talk, play a silly game on the bus or watch movies together. Savor and share these moments because they are what solidify the bonds between you.

Again, this is something alien to us tennis players.

When you feel down or lonely, I promise you there is at least one other person on your team feeling the same way. The whole point of being on a team is to be there for each other in these kinds of situations.

Check in with your teammates, let them know you want to know how they are really feeling so you can help talk them through it.

Some of the experiences you will have on a college team will be some that will stick with you for the rest of your life. The best wins, losses, meals, hotel stays and weekends will be spent with your team.

In that unfortunate moment where you hate every single one of them, or someone irritates you or drama begins to circulate, remember these people are your family.

A family deals and perseveres through struggles. A family supports each other through thick and thin, and a family must let things go.

For these four years, this team is your family and you should treat them like it. Even in the most testing of times when all you want is to be alone, remember they are there for you and one day they wont be, so don’t take them for granted.

Journalist and and former Student Athlete Athena Chrysanthou can be reached at athenatennis@siu.edu or achrysanthou@dailyegyptian.com.