Latest / A Heart That Beats for Home / 31. Navigating the Emotional Rollercoaster of Sending a Child to College with Madison Smith

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31. Navigating the Emotional Rollercoaster of Sending a Child to College with Madison Smith · A Heart That Beats for Home

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey friends, I'm Nikki Smith, your host here at A Heart that Beats for Home, the podcast where we're ditching filters and diving headfirst into the raw beauty of all things home.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Now, I am no expert when it comes to this whole parenting and marriage dance.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm simply a gal who's been riding the mom roller coaster for 22 years and a wife still untangling the mystery of it all 25 years after saying I do.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: My goal is to bring you unapologetically messy and boldly genuine conversations about cultivating strong families.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We're gonna laugh, possibly cry, and straight talk about the joy and chaos that comes within the four walls that we call home.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: No judgment and certainly no perfection, just real talk from my heart, a Heart that Beats for Home.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Let's dive in.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Hello friends, welcome back to another episode here at A Heart that Beats for Home.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: We are coming into the final weeks of our parenting series that we have been camped out on all summer.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: It has been such a fun 12 weeks to hear from so many amazing people, and today I have a very special guest with me.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I have my first family member that is going to be on the podcast.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: My oldest daughter, madison Smith, who is going into her senior year of college, is joining me when looking at the schedule and working through the different stages of parenting and knowing that we were in this college stage, seeing so many things on social media right now about parents that are sending their kiddos off and the combination as you've heard me say it so many times over the past 30 or so episodes that dropping Madison off at college as our oldest was excruciatingly beautiful.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It's the only emotions that I could accurately put into this season of life where there's so much excitement, also a lot of excruciating parts of just the changes for parents, for siblings, for just the family dynamics, and so I thought what better option than to have Madison here with us to talk through kind of our experience of sending her off to college, her experience as the student, some things that we've been able to do to maintain a close relationship, some of the maybe the conflicts that have arisen and just trying to manage different expectations and life changes, and then also just some tips and insight from her as a college student now coming into her last year.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: So, madison, I'm so excited to have you.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I know this is probably a little out of your comfort zone, but I'm so glad to have you here.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: So, first of all, tell all of our listeners just a little bit about you and your life and what you're up to.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like my mom said, I'm going into my senior year at Olivet Nazarene University.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: It's a smaller school right outside of Chicago and I've absolutely loved my experience.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: But I play basketball there and I am also studying kinesiology with minors in chemistry and biology, so got a lot on my plate, but I've just loved every second of it.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Love it and it's been so fun to see you loving where you're at.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: That is such a comfort for parents.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: She also didn't include in there that on top of being a student athlete, she's a resident assistant.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: So she lives in an apartment for upperclassmen and has loved that.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: This will be her second year doing that.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: She also leads a Bible study.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: She has a lot on her plate.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: She is balancing a lot and it's been fun to watch her figure that out Part of the adult thing.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So I think we should go back first of all because it's still funny.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny and it's sad.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of emotions wrapped up together when we think about that time leading up to you leaving for college.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I'll tell maybe a little bit of my perspective and then would love to know your perspective.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: There's one story specifically that I always think of when I talk to other parents.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: If you are a mom, I think dads struggle with this too, but it's a different level of struggle and I remember just everything.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Senior year, right.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Everything is the last first game of the season, the last first day of school, the last homecoming.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: It's like everything is the last, and so it's a lot of excitement and mourning I think all moms would agree with that of that last year and as it was getting closer to the end, I remember almost becoming I don't want to say paralyzed, because I think we navigated it okay.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: But internally I remember, as it was coming down to the very end probably maybe the beginning of August as you were getting ready to leave and there was a Sunday afternoon where everybody was kind of doing their thing in the house and I went to take a nap and I panicked I don't know if you remember this and I was like I can't take a nap because inside I was like if you sleep for two hours, you're losing two hours of time that you could be with Madison.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: And I remember walking into your room and being like I'm tired and I want to take a nap, but I feel like I just need to sit here.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And you said no, mom, you can go take a nap, it's all good, but kind of just that panic leading up to it.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I would love to know what your thought process was before we got to campus, because that's another story that we'll talk about.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: But what was your thought process as a senior, knowing you're leaving lots of new things?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: What were kind of your emotions, I mean to add on to that story.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: First, though, I feel like there was a few times where I even took a nap in my room, because even if you were taking a nap, you wanted to be with me.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I definitely felt that and I think my senior year was a lot different than the average high school experience because it was so affected by COVID.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: A lot of my last ended up being during my junior year and when I committed super early in September it was more of like a I'm just excited to get back to normal.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: I'm excited for this new step, with everything being so restricted, me only having a month long season, me getting hurt, all this stuff like only having classes, that where you had to be socially distanced the whole time.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: It was just really annoying, wasn't a big fan of it and I just really wanted just to get onto the next.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: So I think there was a lot of excitement for me, especially knowing the team that I was going to go on.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I loved my coach, all that stuff.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: It was very new to me to have such a great atmosphere around me with athletics.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So I think I was really excited for that.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: But I think, as it got closer to move in in August and September, I think my nerves with actually going to the next level with basketball workouts, not feeling like I was physically ready, also mentally never being away from my family for more than a week I think that really started to hit me.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: It got to the point where, like in my mind, I was like there is no way I'm actually gonna make it to college, like it just didn't make sense to me.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: It was a lot of excitement until literally the last like two weeks where my room was empty.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: I was vacuuming it out, the closet was empty, my bed was made like the day before and all of it was kind of hitting me like I am never probably going to fully live in this room again.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: So I think that's when a lot of the hesitations and the fear and the anxieties of actually taking a step in started to kind of come in.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: But leading up until August, I think it was a lot of excitement.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: It's the anticipation.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: And then, when it's right there, like so many things, you get so excited for it to happen.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: And then, when you get close and you start to think about all of the little details and how that's going to be so different.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: So these are the feelings, you know, and again, you're trying to create so many special things to have this family time.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: And so then it comes to moving day and we've got the two cars packed up and we're heading in with all of your stuff, the whole family, all five of us went, and we had planned a weekend to take you there.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: We knew that we were gonna do the stuff on was it all day Saturday, and then Sunday morning, have breakfast and then leave you after church.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: And so I mean that when I talk about this one, I don't know that I've ever talked about it to another parent without crying.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I think we can do it now, but I guess there would be some tips in this too for people dropping off.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: We maybe made a mistake of having prolonged it, of prolonging it.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: We did.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: The move in was super fun, right With the new roommate, and getting that first college dorm, which it's so funny too to watch the progression of freshmen, where everything matches to.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Now you're going into your senior year with a new group of roommates and I don't know that you've even had a conversation about colors.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: No, it's just kind of like bring what you have at this point we're all broke.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: We all just need to get through this.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Last year, yeah.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: We're just going to have fun together.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I don't care what color your comforter is.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: So to moms who have kids that are maybe over thinking all of those little things, just be assured that as the years goes on, it gets pretty, pretty chill.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: And maybe a neutral color for your freshman year might help in the future.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we maybe made a mistake on that one.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Your room was super cute.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: It was very cute, but very bright, very bright.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: So anyhow.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So then we get there for that weekend and we had a great day on Saturday.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It was a lot of the busy just moving everything in went away to have dinner as a family.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: You ended up staying in the hotel with us.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I remember you and I ended up on the pullout sofa together and I don't know that I slept more than an hour and I'm sure you were so annoyed with me I felt like, no matter what, I just had to at least have a hand on you, whether I had my hand on your shoulder or I was over there like bear hugging you, and I think it was just the reality for us that this was like the end of a season.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I am going to cry.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: This is crazy.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: So then that was that night.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Dang Crazy girl, I know we've made it.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: It's been so good, but I think it is just like for everybody it's such a pivotal change, so okay.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: So then Sunday morning we wake up and we go to Cracker Barrel and we're having a family breakfast.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to let you take over, because I was at that point I was doing okay.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: We were having family breakfast.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: I was fine too.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of it was like this is actually going to happen.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: But what was nice about my move-in schedule?
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: This was all scheduled by the university, so they had a full move-in weekend for the freshmen, so parents were allowed to stay the full weekend.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: So that's what.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: We were like, duh, we're going to do that.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: And then they had a church service on campus.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: So we were like, perfect, We'll just go until then and then once move-in officially is over, then we'll be done.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: And as soon as that move-in schedule ended, I had stuff scheduled with my basketball team, so it was just like onto the next, onto the next, so no time to really just sit and process.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: So I think this whole time my whole mindset has been on getting my dorm room complete, focusing on making sure I'm in a good place going into the school year and I was.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: My mind was always racing and so busy that I never really sat with like, this is probably my last meal with my family before I leave.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: And it kind of hit me.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: We were just sitting there and was it you or Olivia that gave me?
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: It was a bracelet.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, we gave you the bracelet with the coordinates at home.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: It was the coordinates at home, and I think that was everybody's last straw.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: That was rough, but I think we made it through the whole breakfast and then, right at the end, when we were getting ready to pay for the check, it was tears all over the place.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Well, we had to pull ourselves together.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I was meeting some of my teammates and their parents for church on campus, so we went, but the whole time I mean that church service was brutal.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: It was awful, I mean, and they didn't even do like a welcome service.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: It was like strict, like it was what was in their plan.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: So it was like something like a super deep topic too.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: But I still talk to my friends about it.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: They were like I kept looking over at you and your family and you guys were just like the whole time and it was awful.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: And then we would pray and we would all close our eyes and you could just tell we were all getting emotional again and it was just.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: That was rough.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: It was really rough.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: So I would definitely say, if you can make it short and sweet, it's easier on everybody.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Cause I think the whole weekend in the back of our mind it was like you know this, after this moment, after this moment, it's going to be our last, um, right, like a like a death countdown, right, right.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: So even waking up that morning, I was like they're going to be here for six hours, but today's the day they leave, right.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: So, even if it's get up in the morning and leave, like have breakfast and leave, going through the massive breakfast and then the massive church service where literally all the new students are there with their families, it just probably wasn't the best for for us.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think, too, it's less about how long you're there.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I think what was really hard for us in that moment was it was a time where our brains could have a lot of you know, you're sitting in a service for some families.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I guess that's the crazy thing, right?
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Every family is going to process this different.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Every family's emotions and dynamics are different.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: For us, we're super, super close as a family of five, and so I think all of that silence in church, I honestly couldn't tell you one thing that was talked about Not one thing, and I do remember a lot of your team sitting behind us and most of them, their families, had already gone, mostly because of distance.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: We only lived two and a half hours from campus, so we knew that we had plenty of time and we still had a couple finishing touches to put on the dorm room and things.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: One thing that we've definitely taken away from that is don't have downtime in that process.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: If there's stuff that you're doing and it's busy, it's good.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: So then, after that church service, we go back up to your room, we put the finishing touches on and it's like we know it's time to go, like it's time to go.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: You're looking at us.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: We're not sure how do you do this.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And I remember just being like, okay, we got to go.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: We walk out of your room.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: You were crying pretty bad.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I was so grateful that we knew you were like 30 minutes away from needing to be at your basketball coach's house for a kickoff, which I'm so grateful for.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: So walk out of the hallway and then then I see dad's crying, the sister and brother are crying, I'm crying, and so we jumped into one of the community rooms, we closed the door and I'm just I mean, we're all hysterically sobbing and I'm like right now, everybody get in a huddle.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I have to pray, we need to just do this.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: And so we said this two minute prayer of just not running down all of our faces and we walked out the front door and I immediately put my sunglasses down and it was like that, like death.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Walk to the car and I saw you turning.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: You were crying.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: We left and within 10 minutes of being in the car, both of your siblings were ugly sleeping like ugly sleeping both of your siblings were ugly sleeping like ugly sleeping, not staying faces, puffy eyes mouth wide open, messy hair, your sister that picture of Olivia is classic.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So we drove home and I had a friend that had told me just go right into her room, go right into her room, deal with it.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: See it emptied.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: She's like.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: A lot of parents are like I can't do that today.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: So then they wake up the next morning and it's like this repeat.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: So I remember just walking in there, being like this is awful, walking downstairs, getting on the back deck and sobbing, and my sister Danielle I sent her a screenshot of me and she's like I'm on my way and I've got dinner for your family.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: So we sat on the back deck with a box of Kleenex and and at that point the hardest part was done.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: So I guess that's the encouragement to parents and kids listening that the, that ripping off of the bandaid and that turning to walk away was the hardest part of the entire college experience.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of other things that have happened throughout the four years that we'll talk about, but I just think it's important to tell moms and parents I want to go to you for a second here, mads, and talk about kind of what your feelings were then as we walked away, but I think it's important for families to know that after that hard, excruciating part, you get to pretty quickly start to see some beautiful stuff.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So what was your thought process after we left and then going to your coach's house and like, okay, new chapter starts now.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: So I think that helped me a little bit to pull it together like a little bit quicker.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: I literally didn't have downtime.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: I went straight from saying goodbye to you guys to going to change out of my church clothes immediately getting in a car and going to the welcome dinner at my coach's house and then immediately after that, all the freshmen hung out together for the following few days and then we immediately jumped into preseason and then we immediately jumped into classes.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: So all the things that were heavy on my mind was leaving you guys, starting preseason, meeting the team, making sure it's a good fit, like actually passing my preseason test.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: All that stuff was just so heavy.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: So I think for a full week it was just all.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: It's so new, it's so scary.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know what to expect.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when you're playing with all American point guards who have done this and blow the test out of the water, you're just like, oh my goodness, this is a totally new level.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: But yeah, when I walked out of that suite after you guys had left and I went back to my room, I was starting to feel a little bit more composed.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Like chug, like three water bottles.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: I was like I just got to get through this.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: But then the best part was it made me a little bit emotional all over again.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: But at Cracker Barrel for breakfast Landon was begging to get those warhead little candies in like a canister.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, and he got them because we were all in a.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: We were like, if this is going to make him happy, like absolutely give him the warheads three dollars right and he was eating them all morning, like in church, like I could see him pop one in a few times.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: And I get back into the dorm room and I'm literally getting ready to go to my coach's house and on my desk, next to my keys, is this warhead, the warhead canister that he had loved so much the entire day, and he wrote on it with one of my markers eat one when you think of me or when you miss me.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: And I was like oh my gosh.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: So I literally like carry those in my backpack with me for like a week.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think I ever heard that story.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know that I knew that.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: I think I have a picture of it too.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I broke down when I told my coach about it, too, at the dinner right after that.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: But no, just that was a lot.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: And then but literally, I immediately got in a car with who are going to be my best friends for the next four years and went to our coach's house.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, there was no downtime which helped so much for me, like I wasn't sitting in my dorm thinking about my parents, just left, right.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: It was immediately onto the next thing.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: But no, I would say that was the hardest part.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: But I think the best part about it was we already planned when we are going to see each other next.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: It wasn't like this I'm never going to see you again.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I'll literally see you in October when I come home for pulpit.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll see you in six weeks.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Right, right, and then I ended up getting COVID.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: So it ended up getting COVID, so it ended up being a little bit earlier than that, which was kind of a blessing in disguise just being home for 10 days Funny story on that I got COVID.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I knew I had COVID.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: In the morning and I, and like literally three hours after I found out I had COVID, I get a phone call from Maddie and she's hysterical, crying.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: You know your heart stops as a parent.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: You have no idea what's wrong and I mean it wasn't an overreaction, that was the reality of the state of the world we were in and at that point you knew that if you had COVID you were locked away for 10 days.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: You weren't allowed to do anything and because it was a college campus right, they were trying.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I mean we have to give grace everywhere.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: We have to give grace to campuses that were trying to figure it out, sports teams that were trying to figure it out.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: But literally this moment of her calling and saying I have COVID and I think for you the emotions were way beyond I just have COVID.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: What were all the things that you were processing?
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: So it was middle of preseason.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: I was literally scheduled to be on a recruiting dinner that night with a recruit that was in town who had just played pickup with us.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: But it was funny because when my mom called me she was like I was like I literally just turned in my test this morning, like what are the odds that I'm positive too?
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: We're like no way.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Like we haven't seen each other in literally a month and a half, like there's no way.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: So I think that was kind of the ironic part of it all.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: And I didn't have a car either, so it's not like oh, mom, I have COVID, so I'm on my way home.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: It was like no, like you need to come pick me up as soon as you can because I cannot be here.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Like I'm literally sitting outside, like they're not letting me in.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can go to quarantine quarantine dorm, or you can start driving and I'm like well, good news, I actually have COVID, so I'll come get you and we'll hang out for 10 days.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: So it was heat of preseason so I missed like three of our conditioning tests.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: I missed like three days of pickup, I missed two.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I missed media day.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: So, as my freshmen, I'm not even in our team picture for our freshman year.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: That's literally hanging up in our locker room.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: So it was just something like that where it was so hard seeing all your teammates taking pictures and posting them on Instagram and getting the team pictures and all the silly goofy ones that only the team sees, something that you look forward to for your entire high school career is these fun new things that happened as a college athlete that don't happen in high school?
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: So not being a part of that was really hard, and just the thought of having to make up the conditioning test that I had missed, feeling as though my body may not be because with me a lot of it was my respiratory yeah, my lung capacity.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I feel like I was huffing and puffing getting up and down the stairs.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: So I was like how the heck am I supposed to go back and do ladders, you know, on Tuesday?
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Like it doesn't make sense to me.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: And then I'm having to re-watch lectures online, having to turn in homework virtually.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, that was really really hard.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: But then another thing was just like the fear of, I guess, with my team, having them have to quarantine.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Like the season's coming up, what if I literally have to?
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Like we really didn't know because it was the second year of COVID, so things were were changing, people were still testing, quarantine was still happening, but it wasn't that intense.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Like if you're on a team, the whole team quarantines.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: But like we didn't know this because it was the first case on the women's basketball team for the year.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: So then, like I was like I literally had lunch with this girl and this girl and this girl three days ago Like what if they call and ask about?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: which we didn't share publicly.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: We didn't.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: We didn't talk about who you were with, we were right, so like but I was nervous.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: I was like literally all the seniors are going to hate me, you're going to have to quarantine for 10 days, like this is awful.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of it was hypothetical for me, like what, if, what, if, what, if, what, if?
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: But then being at home, not being with the team that I literally just spent the whole first month and a half of figuring out this new life with and everything just felt so weird and abnormal.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: But no, I would say the biggest thing for me was like conditioning, making sure that when I got back I was giving myself the grace that I was literally sick.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: My athletic trainer she was like you're slowly going to inch back into things, you're not going to go too hard, too quick.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I think, knowing that those people were on my side when I got back.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: And I just want to take a second here to say too to you and to all other students that had to work through obviously this is not an episode about COVID, but that was a season that when you had high schoolers for us you were a senior and so it was.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: It was brutal and it affected every group and every age group in a different way.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: But specifically I had so much compassion and empathy for the seniors who, like you, said the things that you thought were going to be your last.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Actually, the junior year they were your last.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Your season got taken away, you had an injury that ended your your very short season.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: And just how proud I am of you and the way that you advocated and fought I know that everybody had their own stances and opinions through that pandemic of where they stood and just to watch you be really strong about where you stood and to be kind and compassionate and to really just try to soak up and navigate through a really difficult season of your senior year and then moving into college.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: And I mean I think the fact I've I've said several times to our kids and just for context again, maddie's our oldest, so when she went to college at you were 19, when you went away just had turned 19, the week of college, and then Olivia would have been 17.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: College, and then Olivia would have been 17 and then Landon would have been 10, 10, 11.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so just kind of to know those, those dynamics of the ages.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Just that was a difficult time and so I'm really proud of you and all of the other kids and I think even just hearing you talk about that it shows just the amount of pressure that it put on kids to for everything right.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: If I'm sick it's my fault, it's ruining there.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: There was just so much emotionally that went into that and I'm just proud of you for coming through that and not giving up on your dreams and pushing through with your convictions and being able to participate in a sport and go to college in a big city in a time like that.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: So let's let's move away from like the move in and time like that.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: So let's move away from the move-in and all of that and let's talk a little bit more.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I would love to spend a few minutes talking about the athletic side of this.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: I know that you've mentioned several times that you were nervous about just that change from high school athletics to college athletics.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Number one I would love for you to give listeners.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of kids are in sports now.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of kids have desires to play at a higher level and again, because of the time that you were in high school and just the state of the world, some of that was different.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: But luckily for us and we would give all credit to God for orchestrating every single piece of your journey we started that recruiting process pretty early and so by the time the end of your journey, we started that recruiting process pretty early and so by the time the end of your junior year had happened, you already pretty much knew where you were going.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: You had that all settled.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: How would you compare high school athletics to college athletics?
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: And, looking back on high school, what is some advice that you would give to high school Madison now being in your senior year of athletics in college?
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: That's, I think, the craziest thing for me moving from high school to college level basketball was when I came back over breaks and I watched my high school and I was this is, the tempo is slow, the scoring is low.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Everything just seemed like at a much slower pace when, literally like two months before, I was like this is, this is high intensity level basketball.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: And then you just jump right into the highest intensity that you can go in schooling.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest advice I would tell myself is those things that your coach is nagging on you about, that you're just like, yeah, whatever, like we don't do that, and it works out in the end like really focus on doing those things, because those are the things that you will get yelled at for you will have to run sprints, for you will have to do push-ups for at the next level.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Just a few weeks ago, before we came up at the lake for the summer, I went back to my high school to do a training with a few of the girls from the team, my coaches.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: I was like dummy defense.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: I kind of demonstrated some drills, but I hopped in a few here and there and I was just giving like high fives, encouragement, way to go.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: You'll get it next time.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: It was little stuff like that where the coaches were like guys like this is what you need to be doing.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: I was the loudest person in the gym, which was funny, because that's normally not like me.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: I'm always on the quieter side.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I like to lead by example, not by vocally.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: So when I heard that and they were talking about me, it just shows how much the college experience you need to be loud and you need to be vocal in order to be on the floor or you need to be doing the little things to 110%.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: If you want to get minutes, it's not necessarily about how many points you can score, but can you get a rebound?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Can you sprint down the floor?
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Can you be vocal?
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Can you take the fact that you're a freshman and throw it out the window and get on a senior if they're not doing something they're supposed to be doing?
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: And I think that was really hard for me because I am very, very shy.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: But just doing those things, like always talking where you're at like being the loudest person in the gym, get past your embarrassment, get past your timid I guess, I guess your timid nature and just kind of be the loudest person out there and I think that would really help me at least just prepare for the next level.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I think I took my first visit when I was a sophomore in high school and it wasn't anything where I was waiting for coaches to contact me and, you know, just schedule a visit.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: After that it was I schedule a visit through admissions and then I email the coach and say, hey, I'm going to be on campus at this time.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: I would love to meet with you if possible.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: And I met with maybe 20 or 30 coaches that be phone calls, facetimes, through text, through emails, actually visiting and I think that helped a lot when it came down to the final decision just being able to really just hone in on what I wanted in the school, based on seeing things that I liked and didn't like at other schools.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I think that really helped, especially going into the season of COVID, where so that was March of my junior year.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: So junior year going junior year, summer going into my senior year is the highest time for recruiting when it comes to basketball.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: So not having that AAU season where you get in front of coaches, you get all that recruiting stuff done.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I was having to reach out to coaches just for a call Like, hey, I know my season is canceled, but here are my highlights from the last few games and stuff that I played my junior year of high school.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: That was another thing I would say Every year matters, because that ended up being all the film that I got for colleges to see.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Right, it's my junior year.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: I think my whole junior year I was like it's just my junior year.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: I have my whole junior summer and my whole senior year to really get like a good highlight film for us to see.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: So you never know.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I mean it was, it was the pandemic for you, but for somebody listening it could be an injury and you don't have in life, right.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: It's like you have to show up today instead of next week in it, next month in it, next year in it, and that was huge, huge for you.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: What would you say?
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: As far as I totally agree with you with the speed and stuff, it was crazy to.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, even as a parent sitting in the stands I felt like my eyes and my brain had to adjust a little bit to the speed of game.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: What would you say and this is probably a little bit of a vulnerable question and so you can answer it however you want but you know a lot of athletes that go to play college sports.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: They are, they are some of the better, best players in their high school teams and then you show up on a campus where every single person that's on your team and you have a team that is large, you guys run at about 15 to 18 players and you all play because of how you play basketball.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: It's a fascinating system.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: If anybody wants to look up ONU, you should be watching and cheering for Maddie and Tiger Ball this next season.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: We'll put the schedule in the show notes, so if people want to be Tiger Ball fans, but you guys play a system with a lot of great players, how did you have to kind of mentally and emotionally work through Wow, like I went from being at the top and kind of knowing where my position was, to now really battling out in a there is no option for me not to show up.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: And how did you?
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: And have you had to adjust to that now, even going into your senior year?
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I think that is something that my coach says all the time, like for incoming freshmen, for recruits.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: I have heard that out of her mouth so many times.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: You were the best person at your high school, but so is this 15 girls that you're sitting around, so it's just a matter of pack your ego.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Right that and with the system that we play, it's fast.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: It's new for every incoming freshmen.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: It's the sophomores, juniors and seniors.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: They have experience, they know what they're doing.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: They know how to run our style of offense, they how to run our defense, whereas these freshmen, like it is so new for us and it's so much at one time it is literally like drinking water out of a fire hose so much information and it's stressful and it's it's a lot to unpack.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: You felt like you knew the game of basketball and then I stepped foot on campus and I'm just like, do I even know how to shoot a ball?
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Like it's just, it's so many new things coming at you where you're like I just really need to rethink the whole game of basketball in itself.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: And it got to the point where they were going to put on the floor who was picking it up.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: As the season went on, some people picked it up like that.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: They're like got it Duh.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Like it makes sense that we're doing it this way.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: And other people like me, where we never we pressed here and there.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: It was never like this hardcore press.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: We never pushed the tempo, we were always looking to slow it down.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: It was so new for me that it took me a long time.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: I mean they normally say for our style of play so for point of reference, real quick, before you say so for those listening, they play something called the Grinnell system, which is really unusual.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: If you look it up you can see it.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: But it's a complete line change of five players on the floor, five in, five out, more like a hockey change up.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: So it's full court press.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: It is fast, it is fast tempo.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: I mean we are scoring probably over a hundred points per game in women's basketball.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, which is crazy.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I mean I think it was the 2015-16 season we held the NCAA record for or I guess, all of college basketball men's and women's for the highest average points per game, which is just unreal.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And you're coming in and out.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: So when the five come in within 15 seconds, the next five are sitting in front of the scorer's table, and it's like every the first.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: When the five come in within 15 seconds, the next five are sitting in front of the scorers table, and it's like every minute.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Five in, five out.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: So it is fast.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: It's everything opposite of what you've learned in high school.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, everything is opposite, and I think the biggest thing for me was getting past the ability to be right and get it and just being able to mess up.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: I think I was so overstimulated with not messing up that I messed up more than if I just would have just messed up at 110%, and that's something that our coach says we would much rather you fail at 110% than succeed at 50%.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, and that was just something where I always this is always a story that I tell people coming in.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: I literally just had a conversation with an incoming freshman who was nervous about the transition and stuff she was nervous about.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: I'm a perfectionist, like I don't like messing up, I don't like failing, and I was like I am the exact same way and I always tell the story because it's very humbling to me, but it also really helps the way that you see that coach, how she praises, how she corrects.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: We were learning our press and I was not getting it.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: I was letting the ball go right over my head and finally, like I stole it.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: I tipped it and I was on a fast break and I had a wide, open layup and out of nowhere, our senior all American point guard comes up behind me and just swats the ball and I was in a practice practice.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: I was like so embarrassed, I was like I actually just got swatted by this five, seven point guard.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I'm literally six foot.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah Right, I'm like this is just really bad.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: But coach, immediately, like in front of everybody, like starts clapping, like that's a way to go after the ball.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: She could care less that I got blocked.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: It was the fact that I finally picked up the no hesitation and going for the steal.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: I got the steal, that's all that matters.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: She's like we can, we can work on that, finishing later Like you got the steal, you're getting the press, it's slowly starting to click.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: So just realizing in my situation with my coach, she praises failure because she knows it leads to success and I think that was something that was so hard for me to comprehend, whereas other people, like they, couldn't care if they mess up because they love trying new things and I think that's what pushed them to succeed in, I guess, our style of play a lot quicker.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: And what's crazy is that, like for high school, I was playing probably 32 minutes a game, the whole 32 minutes, and I go to AAU and I'm probably playing maybe 10, 12 minutes, but I'm playing with D1 athletes.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Like there is some high level competition when it comes to AAU and I had a lot of good players on my team and I was still playing 9, 12 minutes, but I'm playing with D1 athletes.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Like there is some high level competition when it comes to AAU and I had a lot of good players on my team and I was still playing nine, 12 minutes.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: So I was like I feel like I can get plenty of minutes going into my freshman year.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: And then my freshman year there was two or three games where I didn't even play and then there was more games where I got maybe two, three minutes.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: It's so silly, but I'm thinking like my coach doesn't think I should be out there, or everybody in the stands is looking at me as not a good basketball player, or my teammates don't think I'm a good basketball player.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Nobody is thinking about anything but themselves when it comes to actually getting out there.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Like nobody's thinking about how I'm doing right, they're thinking about how they're doing.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: But I think that was really difficult for me and I was struggling in the position I was in.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: I had to have an upperclassman take my position, so we were running at a better pace and I moved to their position.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: So I think that was very humbling for me, realizing that I couldn't pick it up in time, and that was also really difficult too.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: I play a few games and like we're moving you to three and then someone who was out of three had to move to a five and it messed up with their gameplay because they had to go back to a position that they necessarily weren't as comfortable in, but they knew because of their experience they could get it done.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: So I think all of that was just really, really difficult, like just realizing that I'm a freshman, I'm at the bottom of the food chain.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: And then what you have to do with that your freshman year and deciding and I think, still right going into your senior year.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: There are in college basketball, there is no seniority if you don't produce.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: So even walking now into your senior year, where I'm competing with freshmen, right and you have, you figured out the game, your pace has increased, your strength has increased and each year there's been a progression of growth, but just, I mean, I think, for college athletes.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: So what would be, as we close up, kind of talking about athletics, what would be a piece of advice that you would say to a freshman, or even maybe somebody who's listening to this, who's younger, in high school and coming into college?
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: You already gave the advice of implementing right now what you can implement in high school.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: It's never too early to do those things.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: But as far as emotionally and mentally, the physical part is hard, no matter what, and even just yesterday you know talking about you having to go back and run your last time shuttle every year that that happens I hold my breath and wait for the call and three out of three you've passed in the time, even though you've always felt like you weren't going to be ready.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: But what would be a piece of advice, just on the mental and emotional side of it, to an athlete coming into college that probably is going to get their butt handed to them a little bit just with the change in pace and expectation.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing for me was keeping the main thing.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: The main thing and that's what I love about being at a private Christian school too is that that's the life that my coaches live.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: It's most of my teammates live it out.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: My professors live it out.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: There were times where I was struggling and my assistant coach would pull me aside and she was like have you gotten in your word in the last few days?
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: And I'm like no, she's like, fix that.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: And I feel like your demeanor would change.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: And I think just having people that push you there like if you're getting in your word, if you're finding a good, solid church, if you're finding friends in the church community, or it really does help with the mental side of things when I'm struggling.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: That's the first thing my coach asked me.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: She's like how can I be praying for you?
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Have you been praying for yourself?
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Have you been in your word today?
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: And I was like no, I mean I was studying for a test.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: And she's like okay.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: She's like go home and read your Bible.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I promise I think you'll get better and I think that is really helpful, even if it's for you know one thing that one of my mentors and really good friends taught me throughout my four years because once again, I struggle with perfectionism and it happens in the classroom, in sports and in my spiritual life and my mental side of things is, if she said, to always give 100% of your effort where you can.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: So if you have 14% to give and you give 14%, you're giving 100%.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: So if that means if I read for two minutes before I go to class, that's more, that's two minutes that I 100% gave to what I was doing.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: So I think that also really helped where I was saying so.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: I think that also really helped where I was saying all these things about people, bible journaling and doing all these fancy things and like spending two, three hours in the word, and I was just like what in the world?
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Like I don't have time for that.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: So I felt like I wasn't doing enough.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Whereas when she was like literally I read three verses when I can, I keep my Bible in my backpack and when I sit down like maybe I flip through one or two verses, I gave 100% and I think that helped a ton.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: But also just like scheduling making sure that you're on top of your classes.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: You're not procrastinating.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: You're still trying to find a way to hang out with teammates and friends.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Going to church on Sundays, making sure you're getting enough sleep, making sure you're eating well those are all things that can affect the way that you perform and the way that you go about your daily life.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: And when I started to see those things fall through the cracks, when I started to realize that I wasn't calling home at you know my typical 7.30 walk to my car when I wasn't eating well, when I wasn't getting good sleep, because I was stressed like it got worse when, instead of just making that, those habits of making sure I get to bed at a decent time, getting good sleep, drinking a lot of water, going to class sitting in the first two rows, just all of those things it's just, it's so important, I think, the biggest part for me.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're there to get a degree, but you're that's.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: This is probably also the time where you're going to make your lifelong friends, or at least one or two of them.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: So making sure you're putting yourself out there and meeting people.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: In your classes.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: You're talking with your professors, cause I can say honestly that I love my professors in my major so much they're looking out for my interest going into my senior year looking for internship opportunities and how I can get more clinical hours.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: They're just good people and they can tell when I'm not doing well, like you're not performing the way you normally do on tests or on your assignments.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Just having those connections since freshman year with these professors it made them know that I normally do work hard.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: So when I wasn't, it wasn't a reflection of my character, it was a reflection of what was going on the circumstances Right.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: So just having friends that see that, having professors that see that, having good relationships with their coaches I mean there were a few times where my early lab got done and I know coach was sitting in her office for two hours already, so I would just randomly bring her coffee and sit down with her for 30 minutes.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: I just got to talk to her as a human, like talk about our days.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah Right, and that helped my relationship with her a lot, just as a mentor and not necessarily as your coach Right.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I would say those were.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Those are a lot of the big things.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Don't put yourself in a box, don't sit in your dorm room on a Friday night.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Walk around campus, try to meet people, ask people what they're doing and they're having a game night.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Can I come?
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the answer would probably be yes.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, especially going into your freshman year, everybody's trying to find friends.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Right, so I think that was a big thing for me my freshman year.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't reach out as much until my roommate left a little bit earlier than me for the summer and I just started walking down the hallway and I met a bunch of girls on the soccer team and I hung out with them for a week straight and they're still my really good friends.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: I roomed with two of them the following year, so it's really important to get those out of yourself.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, those good firm connections.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: And I I hear in all of that too, the things that you said.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: The little things are the big things.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: So the taking care of your health and again, I know you're speaking a lot from an athlete, a student athlete point of view, right?
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: So life at college does absolutely look different for an athlete than it does for somebody who's there taking classes only, and I think that's all helpful stuff specifically to people in athletics.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: It's good for everybody.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: But I know for you specifically, those things have played so much into it and I think it took you and I think you're still, if I'm being honest, still trying to recognize that you need life outside of your sport, right?
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Your sport has been such a huge part of you and I think this is something that athletes struggle with and I think parents sometimes I don't want to say enable, but maybe aren't aware of until it's getting to be too late that the sports are.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: We have been so blessed to have so many amazing people that have played high level sports in our lives, that have been so encouraging that basketball is a part of your life for a season and for you, that season is nine more months, 10 more months, and basketball will not be the same thing that it is.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: You'll still be involved, I'm sure, and you'll coach and you'll be involved in the game of basketball for the rest of your life.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: But it has been a defining piece of you and I think it has taken you some time to start to realize I am not my sport.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: It's okay to put that aside after I've given what I need to give to the trainings and the weightlifting and the food and the sleep, and it's okay to to branch out and to have parts of life that bring you joy outside of basketball, and so I just hear that kind of in your tone too is just just try to be balanced.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean even my junior and senior year in high school, like when I was at tournaments like I would refuse to eat ice cream the day before a game.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Like I would eat so healthy, I would try to only drink water, and the end it's okay to have ice cream.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: It's okay to, you know, indulge in some sweets, especially when you're working so hard all the time, like it's.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: It was one thing where I realized I was putting more of a burden on myself not going to social events because I didn't want the ice cream, compared to just having a small scoop of ice cream if I wanted it, you know, and it really like.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: It's so funny, though, too, because I feel like some of my coaches throughout high school enabled that, whereas I come to college now and my coach is like what are you doing tonight?
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: You want to get ice cream with your friends, like she loves ice cream.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: College now, and my coach is like what are you doing tonight?
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: You want to get ice cream with your friends?
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Like she loves ice cream.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: It's like one of her love languages and just realizing that basketball is a lot to all of us.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: But it was just the way in which we all came together.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: My coach recruited me, but she also recruited the girl from indiana, and the girl from wisconsin, and the girl from minnesota, the girl from iowa, and now we're just these, this family of 17 girls that came from all over because we love the game of basketball, but we end up being close because life goes way beyond basketball.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: I think that was one big thing.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Especially going this last year was really hard for me mentally and just seeing that my coach cared for me as a person at just as much as she does as an athlete.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Right, she met with me once a week for an hour and she was basically my step-in therapist she just talked life.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: She just sat and nodded, she asked me a few questions and then she even sent me home for a weekend when I was injured and she made me miss a game that I was supposed to just sit on the bench and you know, just try to be the best team and I could and I gave, gave her a hard time on.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: You know, that decision.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Like I want to be here, I'll go home after the game on Saturday, and she's like no, like you'll stay for practice today and then you're going to go home.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Like it's okay, like the best thing you can do for your team now is just go be with your family.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Because she could sense that mentally you were really struggling, exactly and I was.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Even though I was injured, I was still putting basketball at the number one and she just realized that my happy place is with my family and being at home.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: So she was like respectfully, we love you, we're going to miss you, but you need to be home, yeah.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: And that's the best thing I could ask for in a coach and just realizing even if you don't have a coach like that just being able to yourself like basketball, soccer, baseball, softball volleyball, you know, whatever it is track and field, swimming like it may have been your life up to this point, but it's self-leading, like make friends work on your studies.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: If you have a bad game, so what?
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: The world goes on right like.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: There were some of my favorite games that I've ever been a part of in my four years at Olivet.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: I maybe played two or three minutes.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: It's about the experience, it's about the atmosphere, it's about being able to say that I was a part of such an amazing team.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Granted, I would love to be out there more and I feel like every year it's incrementally gotten better.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: But one of my favorite games was my sophomore year when we beat south bend at home and I think I played once in the first quarter and the rest was just atmosphere.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: I lost my voice.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: It was just such a cool atmosphere and nobody remembers like, oh yeah, that's the game you didn't play, right, right, everyone was.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: I love that game so much.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: It was such a good game right and you do a great job when you game Right and you do a great job of when you're not on the court, you do a great job.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: It's it's a character building thing, that you a great life lesson, that you show up in life no matter what role you're playing.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: I know one of your mentors said that it doesn't.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: You can't control the role you're given, but the role that you're given you a hundred percent control how you show up in that role.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: So if your role is on the floor, your coach is going to decide.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: When you play, your coach is going to decide when you're on the bench.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: You don't get to make those decisions, but you 100% can decide how you show up.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I know that that was a conversation in high school when you were moving around to some different positions and it's like I know you don't want to be a point guard, but you don't get to control that.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Right now your team needs you to be a point guard, which is not your comfort zone, and so you can control how you show up as a point guard and you can control how you show up.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: I mean some of my favorite pictures from you from the three years that we've been at and again, you've had tons of time on the floor.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: This isn't.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: You are not a bench warmer.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: You have contributed in all different areas on your team, but one of my favorites and some of my favorite videos are watching you as a team member on the bench.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Several of those games in those pictures are you in boots because of injuries.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: You have successfully, I think had an injury every single year since your junior year where you have been out for a period of time, and it doesn't matter.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: You know what it is.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: You show up 110% on the court and it doesn't matter what it is.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: You show up 110% on the court.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Well, friends, we are going to end this part of the episode here today and make this a two-parter.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: When Madison and I sat down on the floor of my bedroom with a mic and just a couple of notes scribbled on a piece of paper, I wasn't sure how much she was going to want to share about her experience and athletics and just all that has gone into her first three years of being away at college.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: And I am so thrilled that this was such a fun conversation that she felt comfortable and willing just to share so much of the highs and the lows and the things that she's learned.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: And we were able to talk a lot more about being an athlete in college than I thought maybe we were going to, and so we are going to make this part one.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Next week we'll have the second part of that conversation, where Madison and I talk more about kind of the emotional dynamics and how that worked for our family, what it looked like Again, some of the struggles, some of the things that we maybe didn't anticipate would be hardships, and then really what we have done to try to maintain relationship in this time where she has moved out of the home.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: So join us back here next week to hear part two of this interview, and I hope that this has been encouraging.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: I hope maybe if you have an athlete that's in high school that is willing to listen to a podcast, this might be a great one for them to listen to, to hear somebody who is a peer, not a parent or a coach, and just kind of learn a little bit from Madison's experience.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: So I'm so grateful that we had this conversation and I'm excited to share the last part of it with you next week.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: So until next week, friends, take care.