Try Something New

Try Something New           

When I was in high school, I went to a very limited number of sporting events. For one, I live on a farm so I was always taking care of the turkeys, feeding the goats, or grinding feed for the steers. Second, I did not play any sports in high school. I was involved in many other intra curricular and extracurricular activities. These consumed my afternoons and evenings, which meant going to sporting events was not really something I thought about. Third, I didn’t really like sports. I thought sports were silly and why would someone pay $6 to watch an hour or two of something. I refused to buy the $60 Student Ticket that would get me into anything. All in all, I didn’t really like sports. 

    Then in my junior year, I went to a few soccer games and enjoyed them. I thought it was amazing that they could run for so long and not seem to be tired. As my senior year rolled around, my sister Hannah played volleyball. Being a supportive big brother, I went to a couple of her games. I would watch her play and then leave before  varsity started. I continued to go to some soccer games as well as Hannah’s games. For volleyball, Senior night was getting really close and I was friends with basically all the seniors. I told myself that I would go to that game to be supportive of all my friends. I absolutely loved the game. The constant back and forth had me at the edge of my seat the whole time. Everytime one of the girls got an ace, the team and the bench would kick a foot out and scream “See Ya.” At first I thought it was the silliest thing ever, then as it continued through out the game, it started to grow on me. Since I was sitting in the little student section that was there, a couple of us started joining in on the little chant. It was the most fun I had had in ages and it gave the team more encouragement. By the end of the night I was a pro at “See Ya.” I went up to all my senior friends and told them how much fun I had. From that night on, I went to every home volleyball game there was. I even started to help out a bit. On the breast cancer awareness game, I helped sell t-shirts to support the Jay County Cancer Society. This gave me something to do as well as a different atmosphere to be in. 

I then started to go to basketball games with my friends Katie and Aaron. They taught me to enjoy another sporting event in the school. I went to almost every home game that season with them and loved every minute of it. Turns out that I enjoyed watching a good game of basketball with even better friends. I mean if I didn’t would I even be a Hoosier? I was able to build relationships with the people we sat around at these games that I would not have had. 

 I always thought that sports were not for me and by thinking so, I did not allow myself to get out and try something new. As a lesson, I learned to always try something new, even if I was unsure of the possible outcomes. See Ya, Dillon Muhlenkamp