More Than an Athlete: Why Your Identity Matters
Growing up in a family with four kids who all played at least three sports, it was easy to let athletics define my childhood. Our lives revolved around competition: practice every weekday, tournaments on weekends, and even a fight over who got to eat the last chicken nugget. My parents encouraged determination and a competitive mindset in my siblings and me, which often meant almost everything we did turned into a competition. And I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Growing up in such a competitive environment pushed me to become the best version of myself and I thank my parents for that. However, there were times when I became so focused on sports and rivalry that it was difficult to see myself as anything beyond an athlete. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was missing the other parts of my identity that made me who I was.
That started to change when I was around nine years old. One day, I was scrolling through my family’s iPad and stumbled across a YouTuber named Markiplier. I clicked on the video by accident, not knowing it would change my life.
At first, I thought it was silly. A guy recording himself playing a video game? Why would anyone watch that? And yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I was fascinated by this random person playing a horror game about evil animatronic bears in a Chuck E. Cheese-like setting. It was strange, loud, and somewhat annoying, but I found myself watching for hours until the family iPad was taken away from me.
I knew I had an interest in horror long before that moment. My dad introduced it to me at a young age, and I was the only kid who could make it through Friday the 13th without getting scared. But after discovering this new world of horror content, my interest quickly turned into a passion. I became obsessed with everything horror-related: video games, movies, YouTubers, books, and anything else I could get my hands on. My dad was ecstatic. He finally had someone to share one of his favorite interests with. As our bond grew stronger, so did the experiences we shared—visiting comic bookstores, watching videos together, and collecting merchandise that represented something we both loved.
My dad and I, August 2006
Lacrosse was still my first love, and it always will be. But I had discovered something just as valuable: a part of myself that existed outside of athletics. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this passion gave me something I would eventually need more than I ever knew—a place to escape and be myself.
I love being an athlete more than anything. The joy of winning a game, the excitement of making a big play, and even the heartbreak after losing a game are experiences I wouldn’t trade for the world. But in order to feel so deeply about lacrosse, not only do you have to have passion; you also have to accept feeling a certain level of pressure. Pressure isn’t inherently bad. If anything, it’s good. It is what pushes us to improve and motivates us to play at our highest level. It is what makes victories so rewarding and losses so disappointing. However, when those victories and losses become the only thing that defines your happiness, the pressure starts to feel much heavier than just a game.
When your identity is centered around one thing, every success makes you feel on top of the world. But every setback feels personal. A bad game doesn’t just feel like a bad game- it makes you feel like a failure. It is no longer just a game result; it is a measure of your worth. This is a heavy weight to carry.
I didn’t realize I was carrying this weight until the end of my freshman year of college. All throughout high school and my first year of college lacrosse, I had measured my self worth in playing time, wins and losses, and my spot on the depth chart.
It wasn’t until the start of my sophomore year of college when I decided to dive more into my interest in horror. The door was cracked open, but I decided to fully open the door, and I’ve never been happier about a decision in my life. My afternoons that were once spent replaying every mistake at practice, pushing myself through extra condition out of guilt, and criticizing myself watching film slowly changed.
Backrooms in movie theaters, June 2026
Instead, I’d spend my time watching Markiplier videos, playing video games, wandering around comic bookstores, buying little collectibles for my shelves that I call “My Shelves of Random Goods.” I was going to the movies by myself to watch new horror films. Before I knew it, I was doing all of the things that my dad and I did when I was nine. Ten years later and I found just as much if not more joy in those experiences. Every new movie, collectible, or game became another reason to text my dad and tell him about it.
My love for all things horror never left during my high school years. But I had buried it under practice, games, lift, and the pressure to perform, because I thought of it as a distraction. Ironically, having something outside of lacrosse didn’t make me care less about lacrosse – it made me love it more.
For so long, I thought the best athletes in the world were the ones who immersed themself in their sport every single second. If I wasn’t constantly thinking about lacrosse, I wasn’t doing enough. In reality, I was burning myself out.
By unlocking a new passion, I wasn’t abandoning my old one; I was giving my mind a chance to recover. College athletics are no joke and demand an incredible amount of you, both mentally and physically. Between practices, lifts, film sessions, games, travel, and the pressure to perform, it's easy to let your sport consume your entire identity.
But giving myself permission to step away from lacrosse for a few hours a day didn’t make me less committed; it only grew my love for it more. I was approaching practices with a better mindset, enjoying the little parts of the game I once overlooked, and remembering why I fell in love with it in the first place.
Post win photo with my dad, March 2026
Most importantly, I am the happiest I’ve ever been. This fall, I am going to New York City Comicon for the first time and could not be more excited. If you had told nine-year-old me that an accidental click on a Markiplier video would lead me to something like this, I never would have believed you.
Your sport is an incredible part of your story, but it shouldn't be the entire story. Explore new interests. Make time for the things that bring you joy outside of competition. Those passions won't make you any less of an athlete - they'll help you become a more resilient, fulfilled, and well-rounded person. For me, that passion is horror. Yours might be music, photography, cooking, running, or something completely different. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it is yours.
Being a division 1 athlete is one of the greatest privileges of my life and it will always be a huge part of who I am. But it is no longer the only part. And that is the best lesson lacrosse has ever taught me.
College is temporary. Sports are temporary. There will come a day when you take off your jersey for the last time.
When someone asks, “Who are you?” let your answer be bigger than the sport you play.
