An Inside Look at the Life of an Athlete
At the age of four years old I took my first steps onto the ice for my first figure skating lesson. Every day I went to the rink, skated for about ten minutes, then began to cry until my mom would take me home. I absolutely hated it, and I really didn’t know why, but my mom insisted I at least give it a fair chance.
Somehow after tolerating it every day, I learned to stop complaining. I hadn’t even noticed that it was starting to grow on me, but suddenly I was asking to be at the rink every day, and I was. I was there before school, after school, and if I was lucky during school. I even transferred schools to one located down the street from the rink. Working with five different coaches, I wanted to be the best.
I started competing when I was six years old at local competitions. I started competing for fun, but quickly got bored of my coaches and parents not taking it seriously saying things like, “it’s just for fun sweetie no need to be so competitive!”. I skated in my first regional competition when I was twelve years old. Before the competition my mom gave me the classic mother speech saying, “it’s just for fun, there will be a lot of good skaters there so don’t be disappointed if you don’t place well.” When I ran to the stands to tell her and my coach that I had placed first, they thought I was reading the results wrong. To their surprise I did in fact earn first place, which qualified me for nationals. I was on top of the world. My hard work was paying off and I was so excited to be a real competitor.
The following year we travelled to my first nationals. While the results were disappointing, eighth place was not the worst I could’ve gotten for my first serious, and large competition. I attended nationals every year after that and continued to move up the rankings. Placing fifth, fourth, and third place first place seemed to close yet so far away. In 2017 I was at another nationals and feeling like I had the best performance of my life. My coach assured me that I left my heart and soul out on the ice. Feeling like this was finally my year to win the title, when my coach came back with the results I could tell by the look on her face that this was my last nationals. Although my coach was trying to hide it, I could see the disappointment on her face. Speaking softly and gently she told me that I had placed second, and only by a tenth of a point. I could feel my face shifting from a hopeful smile, to complete disappointment. While everyone around me said things like, “that means you’re second best that’s still really good!” I knew that to me second meant I was the first to lose. I took my skates off, and searched for a place to hide from the world. Everyone who had seen my performance now knows that I didn’t get what I came to the competition for, and that was so embarrassing to me that I couldn’t bear to show my face. I was absolutely devastated, and I felt like I had set my goals too high and could never achieve them. I hung up my skates, and prepared for the next chapter in my life: Trinity College.
On my very first day at Trinity I met and quickly learned about Katie Marsden. We had similar ambitions and dreams, only she didn’t give up on hers. A little over a year after meeting, I asked Katie if she would want to do an interview with me about her life as an athlete, and I’ve never heard someone agree to something so quickly. As she walked into a relatively crowded coffee shop to meet me, her joyous demeanor was immediately contagious. Not only was she willing to be interviewed, but she was excited to share her story as she has never thought of her life as particularly remarkable. Her energy instantly made me very eager to hear all of the details of her life.
Since she was a little girl Katie Marsden has had a passion for ice hockey. She started playing when she was very young and immediately fell in love with the game. She quickly learned everything about the game, and seemed to have a natural talent. Coaches and teammates all told her it came naturally to her, but that never stopped her from working hard. She had set a goal at the age of 8 years old to participate in the Olympics. Growing up in England she played local girls club hockey, but as she got older she felt that league was not competitive enough. When it came time to go to high school, she opted to move to Canada to attend the Ontario Hockey Academy. This gave her an extraordinary opportunity to improve her skills, and play with some of the best hockey players of her age. As well as the most serious ones. Part of the reason she chose to go to the Hockey Academy was because everyone was there for hockey and it was something they took very seriously. She was tired of her teammates at home who had other priorities, when hockey was her top priority.
As she continued to progress she tried out for the England national team. To her surprise she made it on the team. This means that if England qualifies for the Olympics, Katie will skate on Olympic ice among the best of the best. This role was both exciting and daunting for Katie. She knew she made the team for a reason, but she began to doubt her abilities.
She began to ask herself questions such as, “what if I let the team down? What if I only made the team because I got lucky?”. Obviously there was nothing she could do to but to trust in her ability and training. As she reflects on her self doubt, she starts to laugh about it. I clearly looked a bit confused, so she said “it sounds so silly looking back on it”. She knew she was chosen to be on the team for a reason, and as they say hindsight is 20/20. Although she realized in retrospect that she shouldn’t have doubted herself, it almost comforted me in hearing that she did have some doubts. Even the most confident and outgoing people doubt themselves from time to time, which made me feel like I wasn’t ridiculous for sometimes second guessing myself.
While Katie of course suffered from minor setbacks such as letting the losing goal for her team in, or not qualifying for the Olympics, she never let this discourage her. This made me think of how I let my failure completely discourage me. Instead of working harder for the next nationals as I had for so many nationals before, I completely quit. Maybe if I had had a more positive attitude through this failure, I would still be skating, and maybe competing at the highest level. I sometimes wish I had stuck with it because I worked hard at it every single day for fourteen years. After doing something for that long it’s only natural to miss doing it. I was too harsh on myself every time I didn’t place first, and at the end of the day that’s why I quit. From listening to Katie I learned that sometimes it’s best to accept the way things are and to let failure continue to motivate hard work, instead of beating myself up over it.
Not long after making the team, suddenly she didn’t have to doubt herself anymore. Of course I would love to hear that this was because she realized she belonged on the team because she had the talent, but unfortunately it was because she physically couldn’t play. During her senior year of high school, in an intense game, Katie got hit against the boards and tore her ACL. This meant she was forced to take a break from the sport, and her training with the national team. This was not good news, and Katie was upset that she was missing a large portion of the season. She quickly began to view her injury as a good thing. She explained to me, “the universe has this way of bringing things you need into your life at the right time. I obviously didn’t really want to go through the pain of a torn ACL, but the universe knew that I needed a mental break. I was deciding where to go to college and the injury gave me a less biased opinion because it made me realize that hockey is not the only thing I enjoy in life”.
As you can imagine, Katie had plenty of offers from division one schools. Personally I would’ve taken a division one offer without a second thought, but Katie had a different idea. Aside from those schools, she decided to apply to some NESCAC schools. Curious as to why she would choose to play lower level hockey when she was clearly destined for greatness, I couldn’t help but ask why she would consider division three schools. She responded with, “I’ve spent most of my life searching for the best of the best to play with them. Now that I’m on the national team I feel there’s no higher level to aspire to. There is no NHL for women, and I would rather enjoy my college experience being able to play hockey as well as have time for other activities. The life of a division one athlete revolves around their sport, and too much of my life has revolved around hockey”.
Katie is a cream of the crop athlete, yet she chose to attend a school that does not have the highest performing athletes in the world. I’m envious that this was a choice she was able to make, as I never really got to make that choice. She had the choice to play at the top level, but decided she wants more out of her college experience. I was impressed with her ability to happily accept less than the best because in my experience I wanted the best or nothing at all.
Thinking about when we were grown up enough to make real life decisions, Katie and I began to reminisce about our first serious moments on the ice. Thinking back to this moment Katie said, “all I could feel was my heart beating. It was wild, I genuinely thought I was having a heart attack.” I began to chuckle because that was so relatable. I told her how I too thought I was going into cardiac arrest, but when my heart was beating so fast and the cold air stung my lungs with every breath I took I knew this was a moment to fully embrace. I focused on the sting of my lungs and my blades digging deep into the ice in order to keep my mind off of the fact that I was alone on the ice in front of what seemed like the entire world population. Katie interjected, “I couldn’t even imagine being on the ice alone. My favorite thing about hockey is that I’m never on the ice alone. Sure it feels like all of the pressure is on me, but I always have five teammates on the ice with me to support me.”
Katie relies heavily on her teammates for support. She would not be the positive, energetic person she is today if she wasn’t surrounded by uplifting teammates for almost her entire life. Her teammates carried her through times of stress and sadness, and she came out a better person. On and off the ice the team was always there for her, just as she was always there for her team. While she was always growing athletically, she was also growing internally. It takes far more than yourself to foster individual growth within yourself. Individuals cannot grow alone and this is a key part of what makes Katie herself. Due to the bond she was always able to make with her teammates, she now knows how to be positive for other people and make great connections with everyone she meets.
This put the entire world of being an athlete into perspective to me. While Katie loved the game of hockey, she also loved the comradery of the game. This was not something I truly got to experience. I always had the support of my coaches, but it always felt like every girl on the ice for a practice session was competing against one another. This made me think how it’s not always just about the game, but about the friendship. The fact that no matter what the outcome is, the team endures it together. One never fails alone, and one never succeeds alone. No one person was to blame for a failure, and success is never possible without everyone on the team. I wish I had had a team because when I failed I knew it was all my own doing, which is why it hurt me so badly.
Katie is not only an athlete, she is also a teammate and a great friend. She learned valuable lessons being on a team, and through her hard work as a top notch athlete. I learned many valuable lessons listen to Katie tell me her story. In the short time that the interview lasted, I learned so much about being an athlete, the mindset of a team player, and that failure does not define one’s self worth. If you take away anything from reading this, it should be that the world could use more Katies and less Ariannas. Always turn failure into something positive to learn from, never let failure be your reason to quit something you are passionate about.
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