Lauren and the Court: The mind of an athlete

COURTESY/BRONCO SPORTS - Lauren Megale

The mind of an athlete can be a complicated place to visit.

It is full of passion, determination, anxiety, and emotion. Every competitor knows the feeling of victory, and the feeling of defeat. You train your entire life for something, and it all comes down to competition.

Win or lose there are benefits and that is competing. I know I would not be half the tennis player I am today without competition. Some of the toughest losses have made me a better tennis player. As angry and hurt as I was afterward, it kept that fire in my heart to train that much harder so I could find victory.

After watching a lot of the Vancouver Olympics I see tears when athletes win and when they lose. It is an emotional rollercoaster to be in athletics because you are always being tested past your limits.

After any kind of competition win or lose I like to be alone for a little while to soak in what actually happened out there. My iPod goes in, and I learn from my mistakes and opponents.

A pivotal moment for me as a tennis player goes back to last January when our team played Clemson, I had the No. 4 player in the country beat. Somehow through a spider web of mistakes and bad breaks I lost a close match.

Immediately when our team was done I went on a long run, and my mind wouldn’t let me quit until I was ready to admit that I was good enough to play with anyone in the country. I slept very good that night, and I will never forget that run around Clemson University for as long as I live.

Short URL: http://arbiteronline.com/?p=41346

Posted by Arbiter Staff on Mar 3 2010. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.