Live Each Day to the Fullest

I am at a crossroads in my life, I could call it a quarter-life crisis, but I am trying to stay optimistic. As I approach my 1 year anniversary of working for the University of Virginia Athletics Department, I am not sure I want to make it to my 2^nd year anniversary. I feel exhausted, undervalued, and uncertain of where this job is taking me.  It has been especially frustrating for me to spend countless hours, energy, and emotional commitment to supporting a student’s pursuit for learning, to find that the student does not even care about his or her education. They just want to play a sport and be done with it.  Regardless of whether the student has a positive attitude, respects you, or is even receptive to your help, you have no choice but to find a way to make sure that student is eligible to compete. Often, I have to allocate the majority of my time and effort to working with the rude, disinterested, and unmotivated while I neglect the driven, dedicated, and passionate student who wants to learn and use his/her education to contribute to society one day. The predicament that lays in intercollegiate athletics still remains is are you a student or an athlete? In reality, academics and athletics should not be mutually exclusive.

While, I don’t want to lump all student-athletes into this category causing my professional frustration because that is most definitely not the case as I have some incredibly wonderful students I am blessed to be supporting.  I am questioning whether the lasting and valuable relationships I’ve developed with the students, faculty, coaching staff, and my colleagues alone cannot sustain my happiness in this career. I recognize at the beginning of any career, you have to put in your time and be ok with doing the things you may not like to do, but I believe there should be light at the end of the tunnel and I’m not seeing the light.

A good friend of mine who works in the admissions office for the university took me out for a glass of wine to help me find clarity in my life and assess my reservations about staying another year. He’s been at UVA as a student and professional for about 15 years now so he is very familiar with the bureaucracy and politics that exist at UVA. Given his long years of experience he shared an interesting perspective. He listened attentively to my many woes and complaints about the department, things I like and don’t like, the way I am treated by my colleagues, how I don’t fit into the Charlottesville clique, how I really want to be in the development side of athletics, I never wanted to be an academic advisor, I want to live in a big city, etc…I was quite the negative Nancy. His response was simple. He read to me SH Payer’s Live Each Day to the Fullest.

Live Each Day to the Fullest

Live each day to the fullest.
Get the most from each hour, each day,
and each age of your life.
Then you can look forward with confidence,
and back without regrets.

Be yourself… but be your best self.
Dare to be different and follow your own star.
Don’t be afraid to be happy
…enjoy what is beautiful.
Love with all your heart and soul.
Believe that those you love, love you.

When you are faced with decision,
make that decision as wisely as possible,
then forget it.

The moment of absolute certainty never arrives.
And above all, remember that God helps those
who help themselves. Act as if everything depended on you
And pray as if everything depended on God.

~ SH Payer

And then made me recite multiple times, “When you are faced with decision, make that decision as wisely as possible, then forget it”.  He asked me how I felt 12 months ago when I was faced with the decision to apply for the academic coordinator position at UVA. At that time, did I make the decision as wisely as possible? I admittedly said yes. This was the right decision at that moment.  I sat there reflecting upon my experience applying, interviewing, and remembering the sheer excitement I had for the job and the line, “The moment of absolute certainty never arrives” hit me like an epiphany. Yes, I’m not certain this is the job for me or that it will lead to an athletic director position one day (my ultimate goal), but I will never know unless I try it.  Now, I am faced again with another decision. Should I stay or should I go. I have to make the decision as best I can now and realize that it is impossible to be absolutely certain that whichever decision I make was the right decision. My passion lies in the fund-raising side of athletics, so now I just got to find a door and walk on in.

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Youth Impact Program

Last week, my father implemented the debut of his Youth Impact Program at Syracuse University.  Very exciting for my him and even more so for the 75 participants. Check out the press release here. Y.I.P is a non-profit program my Dad developed about 5 years ago that uses sport and education to foster positive values, self-esteem, and work ethic in some of the most at-risk inner city youth across the nation. I like to think as an academic coordinator for student-athletes at UVA I am pursuing a similar mission. Just as Patrick described music in his entry Different Similarities as a medium that transcends all cultures, ages, and nations, I see sport acting in a similar capacity.  It opens doors for opportunity of many people who may not have an opportunity or access to education otherwise. Y.I.P. focuses on using sport to motivate the 9-12 year old age group of young boys by exposing them to a university setting and life of a student-athlete at a young and impressionable age. My Dad sent my siblings and I an email the morning he met the participating boys on the first day of camp at Syracuse:

“In 105 degrees with the humidity coming from the finger lakes, 75 nine to 12 year old inner city boys showed up in buses, wide eyed, with attitudes to be welcomed by local teachers, student athletes and the athletic prowess of Syracuse University. I watched them assemble in groups, be put in class rooms and begin the scholastic education of being  a NCAA division 1 student athlete for the next 4 weeks here. Excitement of eating at training table only to outdone with the Christmas excitement of getting full new equipment to play football. The next day provided a glimpse of the success of the program as each boy brought back a self created poem that he stood up in front of his peers and recited it. The nurturing and fathering/mentoring relationships between the 18 to 22 year old student athletes to these young boys was being developed and cherished driven by both sides. There is no question this is a win win situation and change has come to these fortunate  young boys from the inner city of Syracuse.”

Reading that email, I was more confident than ever about how powerful sport can be in bringing people and communities together, instilling confidence, self-esteem, and a sense of self worth in young people, and while not all people in academia may agree with me, sport also creates more enthusiasm towards higher education.  You know the BIG HOUSE is a key element in recruiting incoming students!

While the program does receive some funding from the NFL, the majority of the program stands on the generous contributions from philanthropic and passionate individuals. The program is free for its participants but in order for YIP to expand nationally, we have to raise a lot more funds. This is where the very exciting news for me comes to play…

Ever since I participated in DSIP, I have shared my experiences and interest in philanthropy with my family so my father asked me last week if I would be interested in serving as his foundation director for Y.I.P. This means I would be working in collaboration with him to raise awareness and support of the program. Well, to be more specific he set a $50,000 goal for me to bring in this coming year. I have a lot of work cut out for me!

Task #1 today has been drafting a letter to send to our $1,000 – $5,000 range donors. I feel pretty good about the draft I have, but I just sent it to the BOSS and will see if he feels my DSIP skills and experiences have served me well.

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Post-graduation Advice I Wish I Had Received

While I may be on the other side (working in the real world and receiving a paycheck!), I can fully commiserate with the sentiments of recent graduates trying to swim (stay afloat) in today’s job market. It is scary navigating uncharted waters, especially when the 4 years prior were riding those waves.  I remind the students I counsel daily to fully embrace the time they have at UVA, don’t leave any rock unturned, and seek any and all opportunities you can manage and still stay sane! When I read, research, and basically live vicariously through the amazing educational programs (internship programs like D-SIP, study abroad, acapella performances, scholar societies, ect) a university at this caliber, much like Michigan, provides to its students I only wish I had someone like me howling down my ears. It is always easier to say, I would have done it differently, but I look at how lucky our students are to have the educational opportunities in front of them and I only hope that in whatever capacity they may listen, that they follow their heart and pursue a passion, not just a means to an end. When I was an art and design student at Michigan, I was so thankful that my parents did not pressure me to pursue a more logical and lucrative major like engineering or economics because I would have been desperately unhappy.  And while I am not making six figures or anywhere near that right now, I have a job that I enjoy and I am very good at doing. So when my students come in and tell me they have no idea what they want to major in or they just want to have a “job” when they graduate, I ask them to think about what it is that gets you excited to wake up in the morning. If you can find something that evokes that kind of passion – then go with it and things will fall into place before you know it.

Having just sent a group of very talented and driven 4th years (seniors) into the real world only a few weeks ago, each of them have expressed feelings of excitement, fear, sadness, courage, and anxiety alike. (On a side note, the University of Virginia, does not call its students freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, but rather 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years. This unique terminology was developed  by Thomas Jefferson because he perceives students to be lifetime learners, thus by calling someone a senior it is suggesting that the student is complete with his or her learning). One of the more over-achieving students in the group is already on her way to graduate school at University of Texas, but the majority of these students are panicked because they have no idea what they are going to do next.

Should I just take a job just to have a job? Should I take out loans and go to graduate school? How will I be able to pay pack those loans when the job market is so slim? Should I move back home to save money? How do I know what I am good at? Will I be stuck in my first job forever?

These are all very reasonable questions to be asking at this critical time and while they seek my input, I don’t always have the right answer (I do try my best!).

I think Charlie Goetz presented the optimal outlook for recent graduates to take in his post, Whhttp://umdsipblog.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=432&action=edit&message=10at’s Best When It Comes to Jobs. In his post he argues “…that college students should take time when selecting a career rather than just taking a dead-end job…And I think doors will open if I’m patient. While this debate didn’t do much make me feel better about my job prospects, I think it helped reinforce my perspective—and gave me clarity on some the decisions that I will face as my job search continues.”

I forwarded his very sentiment to my students along with the series of articles, Is Any Job Better Than No Job,  in the opinion section of the NYTimes with the hope they would first, read it. Reflect. Be patient in making a decision and then once the decision has been made stride confidently into it, and work that job like you dominated the court, the classroom, the pool, the boat as an UVA student-athlete…( Get that competitive spirit stirring!)

Most importantly, I reminded them that if you are unhappy you are never stuck because  your first job is not your last job.

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“Real World” living after Canham Natatorium

I never realized how incredible it was to be a member of the University of Michigan Women’s Water Polo team until it was over. While there are aspects (feeling your wet hair crunch because it has turned into miniature icicles as you walk to class in January, the long uncomfortable bus rides to and from Bloomington, waking up at 5:45am to run through the sleeting snow to get to the pool, missing a football Saturday for travel) that made me occasionally question dedicating my entire college experience to Michigan athletics, the good far outweighed the bad so now in hindsight I could not be more thankful I stuck with it.

As I approached my senior year, I was uncertain about what I would do in the “real world”. As my interests spread across performance, design, law, food, athletics, writing, social work – every day I woke up with a new life plan. Somewhere in this process of making future life plans, the development internship program caught my eye. I thought – wow this would be a great way for me to give back to a university that has given me so much. So while I knew very little about having a career in development, after doing some research, talking to people in the industry, reading about Michigan’s current campaign I immediately felt this could be something I would not only enjoy, but could also be very successful. After a summer working in the development office at the law school, shadowing visits with donors, listening to the incredibly passionate stories about why donors give I was determined to make this my life plan.

With my bursting love for college athletics I had to find a way to combine my passion for athletics, higher education, and fundraising. I thought I found the answer when a job opening popped up at DePaul as the assistant director for athletics in development. There was even graphic design involved – I thought this couldn’t be more perfect.  After several rounds of challenging interviews they decided to go with a different candidate. I cried – is my life plan shot down already?

As disappointed as I was to not land my first job in athletics as a development officer, I was equally excited to be offered a position as an academic coordinator for student-athletes at the University of Virginia.  Fundraising may be missing from my current job responsibilities, but the ability to build relationships (the most important skill I attribute to my experience in D-SIP) is what makes me successful as a coordinator. It’s all about the relationships with the students and gaining their trust to support them be successful in whatever it is he or she want to pursue. Seeing the student-athletes win championships, graduate and pursue incredible careers, give back to the community is the reason people give to athletics.  It’s so exciting to be a part of the support system that enables these students to have such a well rounded educational experience.

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