Random Post II

 

For this random blog post, I’m going to write about my experience with a game I love, Lacrosse. I remember when I was starting to write my college essay in high school, my first idea was to write about lacrosse, but my counselor advised against it because high school sports is a pretty overused college essay topic. However unoriginal it may be, I’m going to lay out my history with lacrosse and explain why it’s been such a big part of my life.

Firstly, if you’re not very familiar, lacrosse is like hockey, but on a field, and the ball is thrown around using sticks with mesh pockets. To a spectator that has never seen the sport played, it can seem confusing, but it’s a super fast-paced game with a lot of contact and action. 


My relationship with lacrosse started in 6th grade when my mom took me to my first practice with the Hollywood Bears. Initially, I didn’t want to play because it didn’t seem that fun. But my brother had picked up the sport two years earlier and my mom thought he could help me learn. Given that I was more than a head taller and about 40 lbs bigger than most kids (see photo below), they put me on the defensive side of the field and I didn’t have trouble learning. I stuck with the sport through middle school until high school when I tried to get recruited. I played well in high school and ultimately got some offers to play at some division three schools in New England. I took an offer to play at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where I got through about a third of the season before getting sent home because of COVID.


After transferring to USC, what I missed the most about Wesleyan was being on the lacrosse team. I missed the friendships made strong by spending everyday together, running conditioning tests, and performing the obligatory freshman duties of setting up the field for practice. While I miss the team and the guys, I am ultimately happier at USC and have found some great friends on the club lacrosse team here. While meeting good friends is an awesome aspect of playing the sport, actually competing and being on the field are some of my favorite things to do. Approaching my last semester of college lacrosse, I’m sad that it’s almost over, but I’m extremely excited to get back on the field.




Comments

  1. Marc’s 340 BlogNovember 4, 2022 at 6:11 PM

    Hey Donovan,
    To receive an offer to play the sport you love on a collegiate level is such an accomplishment. Congratulations for being able to experience that!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nate SolomonNovember 6, 2022 at 12:03 PM

    Definitely need to go see you play one of these days, I know the USC team is super good. I was never much of a lacrosse player but I always enjoyed watchig

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lexi BrooksNovember 6, 2022 at 3:08 PM

    Hi Donovan! I really enjoyed reading this post! I have never watched a lacrosse game, but it seems like a lot of fun.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Noor BNovember 6, 2022 at 4:37 PM

    Hi Dono, great post per usual! It's great to hear that your passion for lacrosse has not died throughout the years and that you are on the club team here now!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Florence HartingNovember 7, 2022 at 3:39 PM

    Hi Donovan! I also played lacrosse in high school so very interesting to hear what it was like on a college level playing at Wesleyan!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Morgan NovakNovember 7, 2022 at 11:10 PM

    Hi Donovan! I played tennis is high school and the minute I stopped playing when I got to college I felt like there was a part of me missing. Very happy to hear you still get to enjoy the sport while also feeling happy at the school you attend!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book 1 Post #2

Image
  Gloria Steinem’s book, My Life on the Road , is a deeply insightful book full of impactful stories and advice. The book is an autobiography of Steinem’s nomadic life in which she tells of traveling around the U.S. and the globe and learning lessons about feminism, acceptance, and activism. She recounts a plethora of her unique experiences with people from different cultures and occupations, all of whom taught her valuable lessons. She starts the book with stories from her childhood, telling how her father’s “go with the flow” attitude inspired her to embrace the unknown and live life freely. One central theme that she reiterates throughout the book is how beneficial meeting new people and experiencing new cultural practices is. Her second chapter, “Talking Circles,” highlights the power of women-led groups and movements and inspires activism and involvement. Probably my favorite chapter of the book, though, is the third, titled Why I Don’t Drive. It was incredible hearing about h...
Read more

Book 2 Post 2

The book I am reading is The Wayfinders by Wade Davis . I am currently about ⅔ of the way through the book. So far, I have learned a lot from reading it and have enjoyed it so far. Although I haven’t finished it, I intend to finish the book by the end of next week. Recently, most of the books I’ve picked up have gotten a little boring, and I usually end up only getting about halfway through. I’m determined to finish this book for two reasons; I am reading it for class and was assigned to read it, and I think it has some valuable lessons consistently provided cover-to-cover.  I’m currently reading about the ancient cultures that lived and still live in and along the Andes Mountains in Peru and Colombia. Similar to the other cultures in the book, these Colombian groups have unique cultures and traditions with very unique and complex views of the world. Reading about their customs and their relationship with their natural surroundings, I think of how different our modern American cult...
Read more

My Internship Over the Summer: Final Draft

My Commercial Real Estate Internship Real Estate Debt Originations Intern The Company Over the summer, I had an internship at a real estate debt financing company in Los Angeles. In essence,  the company makes loans to real estate investors, and I worked on the team that helped find and execute the deals. That group is called the originations team, and a few of the team’s responsibilities are as follows: Bring in deals by establishing connections with brokers and other industry decision-makers.  Perform due diligence on a prospective investment (analyzing or assessing the risk).  Present the analysis of the deal to an investment committee before closing. Debt originations The debt side of the real estate business is all about assessing the risk of an asset and determining if it fits the company’s desired risk level before investing. It’s like assessing how likely it is that you’ll get your money back when you lend it to a friend. If the friend has a job, has paid you bac...
Read more