ENC 1101

13 October 2014
Becoming the Seminole Athlete
Coming to FSU as a student athlete is a life changing experience as you shift from being under your parents into being on your own and managing yourself. You get to start early as a baseball player so that you can become acclimated with class and morning workouts. You are taken on a weeklong athlete orientation called Summer Bridge a week before summer classes begin. You along with other freshman athletes get to become familiar with the campus and what is expected out of an athlete here at Florida State. During the week, you are grouped with people from other sports so that you can get to know other people besides your teammates. In your group you do small bonding exercises and team work activities. One activity was a campus scavenger hunt where you have to take pictures in front of certain buildings and this allows you to get familiar with your new school. Summer is an easier adjustment from high school to college compared to fall. During summer you are required to take only two classes and have only early morning workouts. Having the afternoon to yourself is a good feeling because there is not much free time in the fall being a student athlete.
Being a baseball player, you live in Whitehall Apartments which is right off campus. Living in the apartments with three other teammates and right next door to four others, you get to bond easily with each other. Transitioning from having your laundry done for you and having your own meals cooked for you to doing everything yourself is different at first but you learn to take care of yourself and your place. Living in the apartments also teaches you how to be responsible as you have to pay rent and bills. Living in your own room with carpet is much nicer than having to share a dorm room with another person on cold tile floors.
The dining at Florida State as an athlete is nice. Athletes have their own dining hall located in the stadium. Compared to the common dining halls on campus for general population, the Figg dining hall has much healthier and better tasting food. Whether you choose to eat at the dining hall, going out to eat, or cooking at home, dining at Florida State and around Tallahassee has many options. At first, you always want to go out to eat somewhere because it is easier to do that than cook at home, but later you realize how fast money is being spent if you go out to eat every day. Make sure to always have a stocked fridge of water, snacks, and microwave foods because it is much cheaper and easier than going out to eat. During summer term the academics of being an athlete is an easy adjustment. It is easy to get homework and studying done as you have the afternoon to yourself when you have only two classes to take. Summer classes are an easy way to get a head start on academics because the fall term is much harder. In the fall your schedule is crammed. A schedule packed with four classes, tutoring, afternoon practice, study hall hours, and workouts makes your days go by fast but you can easily get behind on work. It can be hard to go home and study when you are worn out from the practice and the workouts. Time management becomes an important skill to have as you have to learn to juggle around from class to tutoring to practice and finding time to get a bite to eat. At first it can seem overwhelming. Tutoring is a big help to academics because it forces you to do homework and get help on subjects you might struggle in. One of the hardest things to do is go to an early morning class after having a long day of practice the day before but it is better to always go to class because you do not want to fall behind.
Practice starts out easy in the fall as you start your 4-man practices. In these types of practices, the groups are normally paired with two older guys and two new guys. With these you do small drills like flat ground work which is throwing with a catcher on the grass, band work using resistance bands to strengthen our arms, and long toss to increase throwing distance. This type of practicing allows you to get used to the throwing schedule and how the system works. When it shifts into team practices, you go into scrimmages and team drills. In team drills everyone works on bunt plays in the infield, run downs where a runner is stuck in between bases and we chase him down, backing up bases in case the ball gets past an infielder, and pick offs to try and get a base-runner out. The first few weeks of team drills starts slow as new players have to learn how the plays are ran but then once everyone gets into the flow of practice, it will go by fast. Tallahassee is a big city to get adjusted to. With many places to go around the campus, there are a lot of options to do what you want in your free time. One place to visit during your summer term would be the Florida State Reservation. You can swim in the lake, play Frisbee golf, rent a kayak or paddle board, climb a rock wall, or play sand volleyball. There are many fun summer activities to try at the reservation. At night there are clubs to go party at or have your own small party back in the apartments. One activity was the rope climb. It is an obstacle course for a group of 7 people to go through. You have to use team work to get through the course and is one of the harder things to do. There are also many places to eat around campus. You have the option to eat at the student dining halls with your meal plan or you can go out of campus to one of the fast food places nearby. Living at Whitehall apartments, all of the foods and restaurants are down the street. Many fast food restaurants are down the street as well. Chick Fil A is the closest food destination to Whitehall. Another place a lot of people like to hang out at is at Landis. The large open field offers many other activities that a group of people can have fun doing. During the summer, you have the afternoon to do many other activities like studying or doing homework or just getting caught up on sleep. With early morning classes and morning workouts or lifts, you are usually done with school and baseball before lunch time. In my free time after my day was done, I would always take my nap after lunch then hang out with the rest of the team. There were also some days where we all decided to go down to the field to get some extra work in because you do not want to take the summer off of throwing. The coaches also expect you to get good grades during summer because it will be your easiest semester for your freshman year. With summer being an easy schedule, fall is a different story. Going into the fall you feel prepared about school since you took classes in summer but your schedule is going to be harder than you would have thought. The average schedule is around twelve credit hours or four classes. With four classes to take and practice to juggle in along with tutoring, your schedule becomes a long work day. Waking up early to get ready for class, going to tutoring or study hall after classes, then to practice is a hard schedule to work with. A busy schedule also teaches you how to become better at time management. Planning out where you have to be and at what time will help you stay on top of everything. Before enrolling and coming to your first year as a freshman at Florida State, you expect to be tired, school would be hard compared to high school, and workouts not that hard. I thought having an 8 a.m. class would be easy since high school started earlier. Coffee becomes your best friend when you struggle to get out of bed to go to the early morning classes. In high school you had your parents to wake you up and make sure you went to school and did your homework. Without having parents to tell you to go to school, you have the option of not going to class but you will easily fall behind. After a long day of practice, it becomes hard going to class the next day but you need to. It is important to the coaches that student athletes keep good grades. In high school teachers always gave notes that were easy to follow. In college the lectures and professors just talk without giving a sign of what is important. It is a good skill to be able to notice what is important that the professors are saying compared to what is not going to be needed. Another expectation going into college was that you think you are ready to be on your own and that you are ready to be away from your parents.
Practicing at this level compared to high school is a new experience that is hard to prepare for. In high school you were able to go through the motions. At the college level, there is no such thing as going through the motions as you are usually doing something different every day. High school practices were almost routine every day following the same schedule. In college, the practices are harder because you never know what you are going to be doing that day. You also have to be prepared to throw more than you did in high school because you are throwing almost every day. At practices in high school, it was okay to mess up a couple times because you knew you would still play but at the practices in college you repeat drills over and over until you do not mess up. Messing up once or twice made you feel like you were not as good because former and older players are doing the drill easily. Workouts are one of the harder things to prepare for because they train you to push yourself past limits you thought you could not reach both physically and mentally. Lifting every other day and running in between lifts wears you down but helps you to get better on the field. In high school most coaches had a routine lift and running program that became easy after a while. In college the running and lifting is different every day. One day of workouts is legs only where the main drills are squats and different types of lunges. Another day could be upper body lifts where the workout incorporates pull ups, push-ups, curls, and other exercises that work your back and upper body. Keeping up with new exercises and overcoming a soreness in muscles you did not know you had is part of the workout. One of the best things about being a student at Florida State is the sporting events. In high school the only event that most students went to were the football games on Friday nights. In college almost all sporting events are just as crazy as the high school Friday games. In Tallahassee both football and baseball have a large crowd. The Saturday of football games, tailgating starts in the early afternoon and lasts all the way up to game time. A good time with friends, enjoying a barbeque, and watching other schools play on TV is what makes tailgates fun. On the official visit before coming to Florida State you got to enjoy going to a football game with the coaches and your parents and some other players in the general admissions seating. Sitting in the student section at Doak Campbell is a different atmosphere compared to the general admissions seating. Everyone is hyped up for every game which most become sold out. Pitching in a high school game with a crowd of around 500 people is very small compared to pitching in college with an average attendance of 4,000. The nerves become even bigger with a crowd eight times larger. Seats being sold out for the next 9 years shows how much the people in Tallahassee support Florida State baseball, and you do not want to let them down. Pitching in front of a packed stadium can be nerve rattling for a freshman but the coaches help to prepare to be comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. Knowing the fans give you full support in every game also helps to calm you down.
One tradition of the Florida State Seminoles before starting every home football game is to plant the spear. This is performed by Chief Osceola and his horse Renegade. The tradition started in 1978 during the game against Oklahoma State. The first person to think of this idea that sprouted into tradition was Bill Durham. “He didn't get any support for the idea until Bobby Bowden came to FSU as head coach. In the fall of 1977, Durham's idea began to materialize,” (Warchant). With the approval from the Seminole Tribe, Osceola and Renegade started their new tradition. The role of Chief Osceola is played by a student while the horse is still delivered by Photo Gallery: Florida State vs. Notre Dame III - Florida State Seminoles Official Athletic Site

the Durham family. The costume of Osceola is also designed by Seminole Women.
Another tradition is the Garnet and Gold Games. A garnet and gold game is a scrimmage played by the team. A scrimmage is a non-regulation game that is usually used to see how the team would perform in an actual game. For the baseball team, our Garnet and Gold Game is held at the end of fall season. The games are split into two days with having returning players playing the first day and freshman playing the second day. The Garnet and Gold Games have been going on for 31 years. With free admission, the stadium usually has a good turn out with a couple thousand people in attendance for the games. Many parents also enjoy coming to watch the games because it is the first time they get to see the teams in uniform before the spring season.
Being an athlete at Florida State can be hard but with the help from the coaches, academic advisors, and other athletes it becomes easier. The transition from high school to college can be difficult at first but it helps to learn how to be responsible for yourself. The tougher things to get adjusted to are the workouts, practices, and keeping on top of your school work. Keeping a good schedule and managing your time well and giving your best effort will help you to stay on top of everything. Even though being a student athlete is a serious and important role at Florida State, just remember that you are still playing a game and to have fun and enjoy the college life.

Citations
“Chief Osceola & Renegade.” Warchant. Web. 23 October 2014.
Olivella, Mike. “Osceola and Renegade take the Field.” 2014. Photograph. Seminoles. Web. 23 October 2014.