What’s constant is that people know. Just about everyone I have talked to for more than an elevator ride knows that I am on the fencing team. I used fencing a lot during the freshman year ice-breaker games we played. People know.
What changes each time is the reaction I get. It can be a nod of passing interest, like I just told the other party that I can juggle nine knives at the same time. Sometimes the other person will be genuinely interested and hold up a good conversation for five or 10 minutes. Then there are those that give an unmistakable look upon learning that I am an athlete. It’s easy to spot when their face tightens and their eyes go hard. “Oh,” they say, but you know they think, “That’s how he got in.” Talking with someone who thinks you slid by admissions because of your athletic ability is more disappointing than offensive. You could spend 20 minutes telling them all the ways you balanced both academics and your sport in high school. You could tell them how parties were a concept, a theoretical event, in high school or how sleep was like a rare vacation more than a nightly process. You could tell them this, but you know they won’t believe you—they’ve already made up their minds. Fortunately, people who genuinely detest and judge athletes as being “unworthy” of admittance to Columbia are fairly rare.
What my sports amounts to is another weight on my shoulders to be balanced with academics, a social life, and the unexpected events that show up each week. Although I love fencing, it will not be my life’s work. I have interesting classes and have found the things that I want to study and eventually make a career of. I am a sophomore, and I know that I’ll fence with as much intensity as I can muster for three more years, and then I may never fence competitively again. It is a strange feeling to see the expiration date on something you’ve done for most of your life and yet continue to pursue—but that is what Columbia athletes do. Only a small minority will go on to athletic careers past their undergraduate studies, yet all of us push hard each week—if not for ourselves, then for our teammates, our coaches, our athletic department, our school, and maybe even those students who think we should not be here.
Another symptom of being an athlete at Columbia is an appreciation of and support for the other teams. Athletes from different teams meet each other at events organized by the Athletics Department, in classes, or just by striking up a conversation at Dodge. Friendships evolve, and soon enough swimmers show up to volleyball games, fencers go to football games, and runners watch basketball. The biggest supporters of Columbia Athletics are the athletes themselves. If there were similar appreciation in the student body at large, maybe Wien Stadium at Baker Field would be filled to capacity more often.
Columbia athletes, by their nature, are multitalented. This personal diversity expands to areas beyond academics and athletics. One of the members of the fencing team is an anthropology major and spends his free time and breaks diving into ancient caves in the New Mexico desert. Others are writers, artists, class representatives, musicians, dancers, film-makers, debaters, yoga masters, and double-major students who happen to be good at a sport, too. Talk to a Columbia athlete without thinking of them as just the jocks in high school, and you may find yourself surprised.
My experience so far as an athlete here has been in no way a bad one. If any part of this article comes across as a complaint, then blame the author for lack of revision. Also, remember that these are my personal views and that other athletes may not only have a different perception, but may be completely opposed to mine. The best way to find out is to go out and meet an athlete. Take a peek at the fall sports schedules on the athletics Web site and go to the next game at Dodge or Baker. Remember, no one has ever won Ivy’s in Butler.
The author is a Columbia College sophomore.
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