Nicholas Gerard-Larson, a senior on the 2009 Milwaukee men's soccer team, will be blogging all season long on the UWM website. Today is his first blog entry.
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It’s August and the fun is all over. Languid days on the beach and late nights at outdoor music festivals are things of the past. It’s preseason, and our previous boredom and nonchalance has quickly been replaced.
While the rest of the nation argues over economic decisions, health care reform and Michael Jackson’s drug overdose, we turn our thinking to far more simplistic issues. Our immediate problems tend to be confined to completing six-mile runs without getting lost or fighting back the ever-increasing urge to vomit during a stair and hill workout. We’ve already been here for several weeks, sweating out the inactivity of the summer months and preparing for the approaching season.
Captains’ practice generally begins at the end of July and serves as a fitting precursor to the start of regular training with the coaches. While much of our workouts focus on regaining and boosting fitness, in particular stamina and speed, we also try to begin laying down the foundations of structure and team dynamics that accompany our training sessions throughout the season. Some of the players may grumble about long fitness days or early wake-ups, but few argue when we play a full game of 90 minutes, whether or not it’s at the crack of dawn.
No matter the fitness plan for the day, I usually keep a fairly sanguine outlook. I’m one of those undeniably strange characters that gets up at 6 a.m. to run 10 miles as the sun comes up. Or takes his dog for a three-hour bike ride in a nearby park during the middle of a tumultuous downpour. Exercise and strenuous activity keep me sane. I don’t know how else to explain it. There’s nothing more satisfying than pushing the body and mind to exhaustion and collapse. While this may seem unnatural, even deranged, I encourage those of you who don’t understand the inner exploration and extensive self-reflection of extended activity to give the experience a chance. Anyways, returning to Milwaukee at preseason time never really struck me as something to dread or worry about, but rather simply signaled the start of another season of effort and self-sacrifice.
August is also an excellent time for the incoming freshmen to start the process of college acculturation. This can be hostile and unforgiving at times, but arriving here a month early tends to properly prepare most of our rookies. Important tasks like laundry duty and equipment transportation greatly aid in building character. It is a necessary and unavoidable experience and all of us have gone through this period of adaptation and realignment.
The arrival of organized and disciplined practices with the coaches is widely greeted with both relief and trepidation. While strictly fitness sessions are now figments of the past and ball work occupies significant portions of each practice, even more of our lives fall under the cracking whip of Panther soccer. Sessions get longer, team meals and tactics meetings intrude on spare time and the body undergoes increasingly merciless beatings at the hands of one’s teammates.
But it’s all worth it when you step onto Engelmann Field, with the clean-cut grass glistening under newly-formed dew, under the lights, in front of several thousand fans, with a cool breeze blowing up off the lake, reminding you why you submit to the purgatory of preseason every year.
