The Importance of Appreciating a Sport - Even When You Are Held Back
In 2021, when the pandemic was out of the serious phase and we were just allowed to play sports again (with masks which was horrible), I was able to have one more season of field hockey with my older sister. I was a junior and truly had a great season. The team was amazing, I was playing, and we were making our way to the Long Island Championships.
Now to set the scene, it was the day of the County Championships, I put on my uniform to wear during the school day, creating this buzz of excitement that can’t be recreated. As the team braider, I had teammates coming into my classes during each period so that I could give them their good luck hair. The excitement only grew throughout the day because then I knew that I would be starting with my older sister, and we would have a chance to win.
7Th period came, which was when the team was allowed to leave school early to board the bus and have time to warm up before the big game. I vividly remember sitting in high school physics, with my stick and bag ready to go, telling my friends how excited I was to just go and play. The loudspeakers came on, and I knew it was for announcing us, wishing us good luck, and telling us that we could leave our classes. I paraded down the halls as my friends repeatedly wished me good luck. I entered the locker room as I heard loud echoing cheers ringing through the entrance, I joined those cheers. Then as a team, we walked towards the bus, I, leading the line, just made the first step as I heard shouting behind me. It was my name. I turned around expecting it to be a friend or a teacher to give one last cheer, but shivers run throughout my body as there were two security guards. They pulled me off the bus and gave me shattering news, that I was being taken into quarantine because I was contact traced.
A million emotions and a million thoughts rushed through me as I played with any good outcome that could come from this. They took me to the nurses' office where I immediately started vouching for myself. “Who had covid? What Class? Where was I sitting?”. She responds, you were diagonal from the person that had covid. Probably the most ridiculous thing ever because I knew you could only get contact traced from in front, behind, or sides.
I blew up on her.
Screaming at her, telling her to give me a test then and there, shouting for my sister (WHO I LIVED WITH) but then remembering she was a senior and I wouldn’t want her pulled out either. Shouting for my coach, who then also began to shout at her and try and make my case for me. All of which came to nothing as I watched the bus with my team drive away, MY moment drive away.
For the next two weeks, I watched remotely as my team won that game, went to Long Island Championships, and won again. I see on the screen my teammates having an amazing moment that was ripped from me. And a side note, I didn’t have covid I took about 10 tests.
They had a celebration after, where I went and cried along with my teammates hugging me trying to tell me that I helped them get there. I didn’t feel it, it wasn’t my championship, it wasn’t my win, and it didn’t feel like my team. I took the medal they gave me and threw it in the basement because I kept telling myself “I wasn’t there, this isn't my medal”, they made jackets – I never wore it. As much as my parents and sister tried to talk me out of it and told me how much I helped the team there, it still wouldn’t help, I refused to wear it or talk about it.
Still today, that experience is a pain to talk about because it will always be the biggest regret for me that I didn’t play in that game and feel the win the rest of my team was able to. But it also shaped me into the person I am now. That next year, I played the hardest I ever had, being captain, I didn’t take a single moment for granted. Now, I’m president of the Club Field Hockey team, and I never take a practice or game lightly or lazily, I bring my all to everything, not only because I’m scared of losing it again, because I then realized how much the sport and the experience meant to me.
Kate Kirkwood, Providence College class of 2026
