Halloween for me this year came with lots of community service. For my psychology class, I have to do a service learning project this semester. I felt that I needed to go ahead and do my project, so I’m not rushing to do it in November. There was an opportunity to sign up for two hours at a children’s home called Safe Passage. They were having a Halloween party and needed volunteers to help with the party and interact with the kids. I had a blast. At first the kids were a little shy, but after a while, my roommate and I were indulged in a game of tag with a little girl. I felt that we were the ring leaders of the Winthrop volunteers, we had a great time with all the kids and are even considering going back just to hang out with them again.
Today after practice, our coach had a service event set up for the team with a Rock Hill politician, Rick Lee. From twelve to three thirty, most of the team helped Rick and his assistants pass out candidate fliers throughout Rock Hill neighborhoods. It was a lot of walking, especially after training in the morning. I missed the kick off of the UGA game too, but it didn’t really matter in the end, as I didn’t miss much of a good performance from the Dawgs today.
At the beginning of practice my coach said to me, “Lee, the regular season ends in two weeks, you gonna be ready or what?” I wasn’t sure how to take it but I replied, “I hope so Gaffe, why don’t you tell DL (our athletic trainer) to speed things up.” I don’t know if my coach ended up talking to DL.. but today in practice, things were definitely “sped up.” After my routine warm up laps around the field and ball work, DL had me do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Whenever guys get injured, even if they are out for just one or two practices, they always have to do pass this running test to make sure they are one hundred percent healed. DL looks at them really carefully when they run and cut at different rates, and determines if they are cleared to start practicing with the team again. So after my routine-stuff.. DL had me do the “test.” At first, I ran at fifty percent for about twenty yards, changed directions, then ran back. I progressed to seventy five percent, then an all out sprint. DL said these looked good, and I had no pain. He then had me run “s” curves at fifty, seventy five and one hundred percent rates.. and again DL said these looked good and I had no pain. I did some cutting exercises, just changing directions quickly, putting all of my weight on my right foot, and again, no pain. After passing these exercises, I had to do some conditioning, including some half field sprints, which was not so fun. This is the first real “training” that I’ve done since August 8th when I broke my foot.. my body definitely reminded me of this afterwards. I’ve never been so sore! A helpful hint to athlete: never take three months off. Getting back into shape is not fun, at all. DL said I am pretty much fully healed, but this being my first hardcore activity since August, my body is going to reject it at first, making me very sore. But within four or five days of the same exercises, I’ll gradually get used to it. Then my friends… I’m BACK!!! The day I’ve been waiting for is almost here.
