The Present by Kailey

The Present by Kailey - July 2021 Scholarship Essay

The Middleton High School Lady Vikes lacrosse team is one of the best teams in the Treasure Valley league.
Well, the varsity team. The junior varsity was having a rough season. We hadn’t won a single game for two months. I was unlucky enough to have been barely cut from varsity. As a J.V. starter, I was feeling the brunt of this losing streak. I tried to look on the bright side, but the future looked cloudy and grey. The past also stared me in the face constantly. Why was there no eye to the storm in sight?
After a tremendous loss to our biggest rivals, Coach sat us down the next day at practice for the longest lecture of our lives. He chewed us out on the normal things, like setting up the arc and passing on the move. He called us out individually on things we need to do better with. The saying “down in the dumps” would fit the mood perfectly, but more like a garbage dump complete with steamrollers flattening our hearts.
Coach sighed, cuing the resolution to his speech. He scanned over the group of somber girls and gave us advice:
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present.”
It’s a quote I’ve heard thousands of times. But this time it stuck to me. It sparked something in my mind to live in the now and not to worry because everything will eventually work out.
We only won one game that season, at the very end. But Coach’s words echoed in our minds as we crushed our rivals 13-4. All we needed was a reminder of the obvious.