Senior Day

Senior day. Senior day does not just represent that athlete’s senior year or even the four years at the institution, senior day celebrates everything that athlete has achieved to get to that point and is the moment the athlete is forced to realize that it is all coming to an end.  

Melanie Boehrig

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       Being born into a family that had already bred 5 water polo players, I spent most of my childhood around the pool deck. I was thrown into a pool quickly after learning how to walk earning the nickname “water baby” and eventually “mermaid”. My parents would tease that they had to bribe me  to get out of the pool after 7 hours of playing in the pool and that chlorine runs through my veins. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that I joined a water polo league at the early age of six, and the rest of history. 

Every aspect of my life somehow relates to water polo.

Literally everywhere I look.

5:30 am practices I will not miss. Friday night practices I will not miss. Jumping into a cold pool twice a day I will definitely not miss. But I will miss the feeling of walking into the locker room and seeing all familiar faces. Singing in the locker room, cheering after a hard lift, spending all your free time with your teammates in addition to the 20 hours of practice a week, these people become your family. Seeing clothes and towels thrown across the room, this was my environment and this is where I felt most at home. Sitting in the same seat for film every Wednesday for the past four years gives me a sense of place and stability that I am not ready to be detached from.

The janitors hated us but we can't help it!

The dreaded cardio workouts.

The Turchi Room where we were forced to watch the games we lost repeatedly.

Over and over again.

Every athlete knows Senior Day is coming for four years and should come as no surprise. But it does. Streamers above the doors, flower leis, posters on the windows, and balloons in every corner all stir up the most bittersweet of emotions. Seeing friends and family in the stands, the adrenaline before the sprint, it all seems to mesh into a blur. During these moments, happiness and sadness play a game of tug-of-war until it all is quickly over.

Locker room decorations.

Flower leis all the way from Hawaii!

            And then it is really all over. 14 years of playing the sport of water polo finished in a matter of an hour. As much as we all complain about practice and dread getting into the pool, almost instantly that feeling of having practice is missed. Being on a D1 team, the level of companionship among the team and level of hard work is rarely matched in any other group setting, which will undoubtedly be missed by all. Senior day came and went becoming one of the fondest memories I will have of the one thing that took over the first quarter of my life, water polo.

The locker room after hours.

Leaving Senior Day.