Walkin’ the Sidelines with Scott Baker: Are you a serious athlete? Show it with your actions
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Are you a serious athlete? Wait, don't answer that question with a simple yes or no. Rather, show by your actions that you are indeed serious. Preseason practices for fall sports season will soon begin. Hundreds of athletes locally -- thousands across the commonwealth and millions across the nation -- will arrive to their respective preseason training camps claiming to be ready to begin practices in preparation for a successful season.
However, how many of those prospective athletes will be prepared to perform at their best? Sadly, many of them will arrive claiming to be ready to roll but they will be far from prepared. Shame on them. Why? Because many will have failed to get themselves into any type of condition leading up to the first practice date. Yep, what I'm saying is that you can't be serious as an athlete if you do not pay any or much attention to getting yourself into shape. Notice that I said, "getting yourself in shape."
Conditioning is something that all or most coaches pay much attention to but should not have to. If a player cannot arrive to their preseason practices with at least a basic level of conditioning, then it is hard to believe that they are indeed serious about wanting to be good individually or their team to be good or successful. Think about it this way, if a player is not in shape when they arrive at their preseason practices, they are going to be more inclined to get injured or be sidelined by fatigue or out of shape type issues.
When they are sidelined, they are not able to spend the precious amount of valuable practice time that they have honing their skills and working with their teammates to develop the team's cohesiveness. Additionally, when players arrive at preseason practices out of shape, their coaches are forced to spend some of the precious little practice time that they have to get their teams ready conditioning their athletes.
Simply put, athletes must be in shape. No athlete or team can reach their maximum potential without being in shape. Unfortunately, many athletes who claim to be serious about their sport do not believe that conditioning is important, and risk the increased potential of injury as well as the loss of much valuable practice time.
That is completely inexcusable.
No serious athlete should neglect to get themselves into shape. No serious athlete will neglect to get themselves into shape. Anyone claiming to be a serious athlete, yet failing to get themself into shape, cannot and should not be considered a serious athlete.
Likewise, athletes who claim to want themselves and or their teams to be successful yet reject the idea that anything less than peak conditioning is key, fails to show that they are serious about what they claim to desire.
Athletes have many opportunities in the off season to make sure that they get themselves conditioned in order that they might achieve their full potential and in the process their team can as well. Why do some athletes not take conditioning seriously?
The answers to that question will surely vary -- laziness, not having time, claiming the sport doesn't require conditioning. Some will find a multitude of other excuses for not getting into shape. Let's be honest though, excuses are excuses and regardless of how they are packaged or presented, they stink. If an athlete is truly serious about wanting to be successful and wanting their team to be successful as well, they will get themselves into shape. That will be with offseason trainings with teammates or working out seriously on their own.
A serious athlete won't make excuses to keep from getting into shape. They won't be too busy, they won't be too lazy, they won't try to convince themselves and others that conditioning isn't important in their sport and won't make other excuses.
Will it be fun? Likely it will not. Think about it, most people don't enjoy conditioning. However, a serious athlete will pay the price to ensure that they are conditioned so that they can enjoy what is fun, a high-level of athletic performance and winning, which will only be possible if they are in shape.
So then, athletes, are you serious? If so, resist the excuses and do what an athlete that is serious about their performance would do: get in shape.
Don't wait until tomorrow to start because your competition has already been preparing to defeat you when they meet you. This scenario repeats itself for every sports season throughout the school year. If you are serious and want to be as successful as possible, always be sure to take conditioning seriously.
You'll be happy that you did. No, seriously, you really will.