By: Lucas Nudelman
Last year I hadn’t thought of losing the class of 2010 until very late in the season. I didn’t consider the fact that these people, who I spent hours with everyday, would soon be out of my life. I held these men in such high esteem and soon they would be spread far and wide as they went off to college. I made an error that I decided never to make again; I didn’t savor those last few weeks with these people I so adored.
So the conference meet rolled around; this would be the last meet for a lot of the seniors. As I watched guys like captain Jake Hoffman and fellow senior Ethan Zallik do their cool down laps, I realized this was the end of an era. Reality sunk in that all the good times, from finishing tough workouts to going out to dinner after a meet, would soon just be fond memories. I saw a few guys jump in to take one last slow stroll around the oval with our elder teammates, and one of my biggest regrets is not jumping in as well.
In retrospect I see things more clearly. The graduation of that class was very difficult, but life on the team goes on. After all, the team will always be the team. As the sign in the cage reads; “tradition never graduates”. That is exemplified in everyday life on the team. From routes named after alumni who no one on the current team is even familiar with, to things as big as the Twenty-Four Hour Run. The team is ever-evolving yet its always going to be the same. Although the aesthetics may be different from year to year, the core values will hardly change.
This years seniors managed to surprise me. I thought that it would never be as hard to lose a group as it was my freshman year, yet this year has been as difficult if not more so. This year, when the season was winding down, I viewed every running experience as that last slow stroll around the oval. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake two years in a row. I wasn’t going to be so naïve as to not realize what I was losing. Through everything though, at the end of this season, I felt again that the team wouldn’t recover, and it would never be as great as it was, without my graduated friends.
I’ll feel this emptiness I suppose until a new class resuscitates the team, breaths new life into my disheartened lungs, and relieves my melancholy; until a new class gets passed down the traditions from the class so tethered to my persona as an athlete. Soon, unknowingly, a new group of guys will validate everything last years seniors strived for; by exhibiting positive habits that they so ardently endeavored to instill. Their mark will be forever etched into the team.
