- November 28, 2024
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Don't let more than a year pass without reuniting with your former teammates. Trust me, you'll miss these guys.
BY MATT MENCARINI | SPORTS EDITOR
There are a few times a year when we’re forced to reflect on the past. Graduation season is one of those times.
It’s a unique time for senior athletes. Many of their former teams have already moved on and began practicing, working out and, well, just existing without them. Those seniors who were such big contributors to those programs, in an instant, now are just spectators. They've all become "formers."
He’s a former Sandcrabs football player. She’s a former Buccaneers basketball player. He’s a former Green Wave baseball player.
Ownership of the teams has been transferred to the juniors, the seniors-to-be, who feel as if they have an eternity remaining in their high school careers. The same way the senior classes felt a year ago.
After four years spending countless hours together with your teammates, experiencing highs and lows and building bonds, a vast majority of you will never play competitive sports together again.
But remember: Your bonds don't end here.
Flying over some part of southern Georgia or northern Florida Sunday night, on my way back from a college teammate’s bachelor party in Nashville, memories began to flood my mind.
There was a time when these memories would’ve been about games, practices or things we did in college. But this time, the memories were from the time we spent as teammates, as formers.
There may not be any more games or practices or workouts ahead of us, but there will be plenty more bachelor (or bachelorette) parties, weddings and get-togethers. It's funny, when you reminisce about old memories during all these reunions, you won't even realize while it's happening that, right then, you're making all new memories to reflect back on later.
If I can give one piece of advice to the graduating seniors who will soon become an entire class of formers, it’s to not let more than a year pass without reuniting.
Once a year, every year, despite where life takes you, reunite with your former teammates. Pick a game or weekend or find a reason to be in the same place at the same time. Some years it will be easy. Other years it will be hard.
But it’s worth the hard work and the scheduling, because it’s during those times together that the old memories take life again, and new ones take form.
