Rookie Season

Topic: Rites of Passage

Source: This weeks reading in the Anthropology book about Rites of Passage.

Relation: I just finished my rookie season for the Humboldt State soccer team and in order for myself and the other rookies to become not rookies we had certain obligations throughout the year. Every rookie that comes into the program had to do these jobs and even the coaches have done them.  The Rite of Passage is graduating from a rookie to a full player on the team.

Description: Everybody that plays a sport can tell you what being a rookie is like.  This year on the soccer team we had around fifteen new rookies.  This is a crazy amount compared to a normal incoming rookie class that usually looks like five to eight rookies.  This Sunday we finished up our final spring season games which officially makes all the rookies now graduated into not being one anymore.  But, before getting out of the rookie status there were a ton of things that we had to do.  The first one was our rookie night right before the fall season.  The upperclassmen tricked us and said that we were going on a run to Eureka at the end of double days.  All of the rookies showed up, all tired from practice and we were the most sore we had ever been.  Dreading the run we all had low spirits and bad attitudes.  We all arrived at one of the soccer houses.  Everybody was dressed in running clothes.  Our captains came out and said we had to have a team meeting in the back of the house.  We walked to the back and they explained that we were not going to be running to Eureka.  Instead we were going to be having the traditional rookie night.  A lot of the activities I can not discuss but it is a night that I can barely remember but will never forget.  That was the first of the rookie obligations.  For the rest of the year all rookies were in charge of cleaning up after practice, carrying the ball bags and the medical kit when we travel, and basically doing whatever the coaches and upperclassmen told us to do.  We were each assigned specific jobs after practice which included moving and locking the goals, picking up the training tops, counting and gathering all the practice balls, and cleaning the locker room.  These jobs do not seem too bad but after a full season they really get annoying and most of the rookies got fed up with it.

Commentary/Analysis: Going through my rookie season was a great opportunity to grow not only as a person but also as a player on the pitch.  The obligations that we had to do as rookies were really repetitive time after time.  It really was horrible because if one of the jobs were not completed the whole team would have to run the next day at practice.  I don't know about anyone else but being yelled at by the upperclassmen for making the whole team run is not fun whatsoever.  I remember my coaches told us at the beginning of the year that rookie season will be one of the most fun but also requires the most work.  The best thing to do is to shut up and just to the extra little work.  Everybody has had to do it once in their lives and it is apart of being a rookie.  The best part of it is to know that next year I will be making the rookies do all the work and none of the jobs will pertain to me anymore.  Going through rookie night and picking up after the team was definitely not a super fun experience but everybody has do to it and I am glad I will never have to do it again.