Some things last forever.
I'll get sappy and maudlin and preach about the permanence of college memories in a moment. I'm talking about something a little more physical.
On the inside of my right arm, just above the crease of my elbow, is a scar. It's been there for four months and hasn't shown the slightest sign of fading away. Something tells me it's not going anywhere.
Which is great - I need it to be there.
Because from this point forward, every time I wake up in the morning and stretch out my arms to get prepared for another day of the real world, I will be reminded of the past four years. It's my Harry Potter-esque badge of honor, a testament to the one truly unique part of my college experience. Every single person reading this has that one moment they will always remember, whether it's the profound discussions with a favorite professor or the time you broke your nose stumbling out of the 9-0.
Hopefully, one way or another, you have a scar of your own.
-
It's an early January morning and people are beginning to trickle back to campus. The comfort of home is in the rearview mirror as the spring semester enters the picture.
Me? No family to speak of except for a New Year's visit to a nearby aunt. My birthday spent watching a USC men's basketball game and drinking a Newcastle in my room while surfing Perez Hilton's archives.
Responsibility got in the way, a chance to contribute something tangible to this university.
I'm biking through the Los Angeles cold (different from the traditional definition), late to practice. In the most technical terms, I am a varsity athlete at the University of Southern California, but I don't appear on any roster and you won't see me on the sidelines before football games.
As a member of the USC women's basketball practice squad, there's no glory. You show up, you get beat up, you go home - but at least you get some killer warm-ups, at the expense of some friendly teasing for playing against girls.
On this day, the girls are getting pushed extra hard for the start of the conference season. The Pacific-10 Conference wasn't considered one of the country's elite, but it did have some formidable post players to contend with, namely Stanford's Brooke Smith and California's Devanei Hampton. At 6-foot-5, 230 pounds, I'd be one of college basketball's biggest women's players, and thus provide a realistic replica of what the team could face in games.
I was taught how to play, incidentally, by my mother, a center on the Iranian National Team at 5-foot-7. Needless to say, there was a detailed lesson on how to shoot an un-guardable jump hook early in life … if only I could make it.
My size and relative skill were complemented by a strong commitment, fumbling for the snooze button at the hour when the rest of the student body is calling it a night. Jody Wynn, one of the team's assistant coaches, once said she didn't know what they were going to do once I left school.
Not that I never had doubts, particularly on this morning. Besides shivering through a 15-minute bike ride to the Galen Center and getting a pad taped onto my foot to protect a nasty blister, there was the vandalization of my body.
During a rebounding drill, Morghan Medlock, a freshman forward, reached to try and rip the ball away from me and instead ran one of her fingernails up my arm. I held onto the ball, thank you very much, until I noticed the blood starting to seep out and the chunk of skin she was trying to pry off her finger.
Kristen Travers, a senior walk-on, looked at me in disgust.
"That's gross," she said.
"That's nasty," added senior center Chloé Kerr, who would strike me in the face two weeks later after a pump fake sent her flying into the air and her elbow came crashing back down to earth - with my eye in the way.
The trainer wrapped up my arm, practice ended and I biked home a little slower.
"What the hell am I doing with my time?" I thought, unable to identify anyone else who voluntarily gives up such a large percentage of his final semester of college for physical abuse.
But, the next day, I did the exact same thing.
-
The satisfaction of sacrifice is the single greatest feeling in the world. Every drop of sweat, trickle of blood and awful-looking bruise felt terrible at the time, but the rewards were incalculable.
There's a cliché that I never understood until this year - how exactly do you feel a "wave of joy?"
Then I saw the manifestation of hard work for the first time in my life. High school is a joke, so getting into college is a possibility for anyone who's semi-alert. Getting a job after college is a crapshoot, so it's hard to see it as an accomplishment.
Laziness, for once, went out the window in place of altruism. None of this was about me; it was about making these wonderful athletes better in any way possible.
And when I sat there in the Galen Center when the team hosted Stanford, watching sequences where everything the team worked on during practice followed the script perfectly, I got chills. After rep upon rep in the post shooting Brooke Smith's unique step-through hook shots, I turned giddy when Kerr read the play perfectly and blocked the shot.
Without me, I like to think, she doesn't block that shot. Without me, my ego rationalizes, Stanford scores two points. And the best part about it is that these aren't just names and faces out there on the court. To me, they're personalities I've grown to know.
Shay Murphy, headed for a career in the WNBA, is the one who will verbally tear me apart if I don't work hard enough and pull down a rebound when I'm on her side during a drill. That competitive streak is what will undoubtedly keep her playing the sport she loves for a very long time.
Kerr is convinced I'm going to miss her. I will, but my rib cage won't.
Camille LeNoir and Jamie Hagiya, the point guards who could use some of my court vision expertise, if I could just dribble, stay on balance and make strong passes.
Jacki Gemelos, Aarika Hughes, Medlock and Hailey Dunham, the freshmen who I only spent a year with but convinced me - assuming good health - that the program will flourish despite losing six seniors.
All the rest made me laugh, made me work, made me appreciate the presence of strong, beautiful and talented women. My mom would be so proud.
-
I missed the team's season-ending banquet this year because of class. I had already skipped twice and another absence would drop me a letter grade, and as much as I care about those girls, I wasn't about to put graduation at risk.
Unfortunately, I also missed the opportunity to tell them all how I feel, how they've changed me.
After this paragraph, you can stop reading. The words that will follow are meant for their eyes. I only hope you have something similar to hold onto (this is the maudlin crap I warned you about), and that you'll have a scar of your own to remind you of it.
Earlier this year, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics put forward a proposal to ban the use of male practice players in women's sports, particularly basketball, where they are most prominent. It was meant to be applied in Division-III only, but as a potential precursor to a college-wide ban.
Numerous newspaper and online columnists spoke out against it, including former women's athletes who said that the use of men during practice has primarily positive results. One of the most passionate critics was ESPN.com's Mechelle Voepel, who called it her current "stupidest thing I've ever heard of."
But she went a step further. It's not just about the girls - the guys benefit, too.
This is how she ended her column, girls, and you should know that every word of it is true:
"Here's something else that is significant in this whole matter. Let's consider what being a practice player does for the men who fill that role. They are participating in something that's designed to contribute to the betterment, achievement and glory of women - not themselves. They need to be punctual, responsible, willing to follow instruction, able to control temper flare-ups in the heat of competition, and eager to work hard toward something that helps other people.
"Gee, you don't think any of that stuff is going to make them better human beings, partners and fathers, do you?
"They are learning to respect women as athletes. They are taking that respect with them - at least to some degree - when they're around other men who don't think or feel the same way. Maybe they are changing a few minds."
I'm a better man because I was a practice player for the USC women's basketball team for two years.
And for that, I love you girls.
