Ryan A.
Photography by Jessica Pentel.
If you’re reading this, you can choose what defines you.
For most of my life, my identity was inextricably tied to baseball. I was a pitcher, and I loved the game. The story goes that when I was two years old, I took a plastic potato and celery stick out of my toy kitchen and turned them into a bat and ball. I never looked back! I remember waiting on the front porch, socks pulled up just below my knees, to get picked up for a 7PM game under the lights (this was considered very cool in Little League).
I progressed through Little League, All Stars, and was even lucky enough to play in Europe. But when I was 15, I felt a tug in my elbow. The pain eventually got worse, and after four years, three operations, several surgical scars, injections of PRP, and plenty of ibuprofen, my baseball dreams were crushed.
This experience didn’t happen overnight. It was a knock-down, drag-out brawl between my heart and my arm. My skill level declined with each operation and continued arm pain, to the point I eventually recognized that my senior year would be my last on the diamond. I didn’t understand why this was happening to me, when I had dedicated my life to the sport. I felt as though I had sacrificed grades, a social life, and a well-rounded college application for baseball. And yet, by the time I graduated from Herndon HS in 2017, I had not only lost my chance to play collegiate baseball, but I had been rejected from my dream school, UVA. I found myself without an identity.
Of course, I wouldn’t be writing this today if the story ended there. I decided to take a road less traveled: I opted for a post-graduate year at a boarding school in New Hampshire. It seemed like such a strange concept to most (and even to me, too). I would study there for one year with the goal of earning an acceptance to UVA. Baseball was slipping through my fingers, and there was nothing my mind could do to change that. But, UVA didn’t have to be that way. I focused all my energy on this goal, and was grateful to be accepted into the class of 2022.
When I arrived on Grounds in August of 2018, I had a choice: would I introduce myself as the washed up high school athlete I felt myself to be, or would I explore new passions, like history and advocacy? I opted for the latter and am so much happier for it.
This is all to say that if you’re reading this, your identity is yours to define. That’s a lot easier said than done, I know, but it’s worthwhile. For the first 18 years of my life, I saw myself as nothing but a baseball player. But the friends I’ve made since I’ve been at UVA would consider that fact a small part of my personality today, and I am glad to feel the same way.
Things are tough right now, and we’re all feeling it. Maybe our hopes for the year or even our upcoming job prospects have been dashed. But it doesn’t mean we can’t redirect our energy into new directions. We just might be the better for it.
Ryan A., University of Virginia
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