TO THE EDITOR:
Looking back at my first two years at UNC, I’m starting to realize it’s not so much the injuries that have wrapped the iconic phrase, “I’m a Tar Heel,” in a somewhat depressing connotation — it’s the feeling of guilt associated with it.
From a variety of different flavors of resentment, I’ve learned to associate the student-athlete experience with sacrifice in all the wrong ways. Study abroad? I can’t even study.
At a minimum, professors are wary of you. At most, they outwardly refuse to sign travel forms out of ideological protest (yes — this happens). Other students don’t even try to disguise their disdain in ideology. Some of my teammates have sat through “debates” in classes wherein the overarching consensus is that athletes don’t deserve to be here. The tone is always personal. And I guess it settles in.
Here’s the thing. What a blessing it is to be an athlete — at UNC and anywhere. Today I was just writing. I didn’t mean to write about running, but the following paragraph shot out of the pen like an awkward, brace-faced 7th grade me in the 100-meter dash: “I was born to be an athlete. It’s in my bones. It’s literally in my bones and I haven’t felt it in so long. It’s fire when I fly. It’s life. It’s life like you can’t live it any other way. Carving out the curve on a track. Shouldering someone with a stick in your hand. You have to beat them Goddammit. You simply have to. And then you do and you’re the hero, but none of that matters as much as all the life you just lived in an instant. All the human you just were. That’s me. More than anything. I don’t know why I’ve been ashamed of that.”
There are real problems with the student-athlete experience on an administrative level. But none of that has anything to do with the athletes themselves. They came here for fire. Try to honor that. Try to respect that. I can’t believe I ever forgot.
Blake Dodge
Junior
English and Philosophy
