Becoming A Student Athlete – 5 Things I Wish I Knew

If you’re new here, my name is Vlad Castillo Jr. I’m a athlete mindset coach and wanted to make a quick article for you on 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Becoming A Student Athlete. I went to William & Mary, where I competed as a Division 1 Shot Put & Discus thrower. Before we get started, I’d love to invite you to my journey, and like and subscribe to my channel below. I recently started this, and hopefully it serves you.

1. Setting Up Expectations

You have to setup expectations for yourself coming into college, and your goals must align with them. Do you want to be the best in your conference? Do your due diligence and research what the competition is like! A great place to start is TFFRS. Check that website out to see how you rank against your teammates. However, if you’re someone who can get in their own head about rankings, I would strongly recommend just not checking it. Friends of mine used to check TFFRS everyday. When they didn’t meet their self-imposed expectations, they were upset and didn’t understand how they went from being at the top of their ranks in high school to being mediocre in the conference.

High Expectations

If you have high expectations, good! I’m glad that you’re a high achiever. However, are your actions backing your words? Meaning – do you have the discipline to eat right, be prepared for every lift, and even miss out on social events for a good night’s rest? If you keep telling yourself that you’re going to be a National Champion, and then are drinking every Friday, you are not setting yourself up right. To be great requires real and serious sacrifice – even giving up on having the fun “college experience” you may have always wanted.

Low Expectations

If you have low expectations, make sure you are not becoming lazy in the process. I’ve seen people that were just “happy to be on the team” get cut because they didn’t perform well. The reality is that if you’re going into this with a minimalist attitude, you probably won’t make it the four years. If at the chance that you do, you’ll probably be bummed out because your performance is not where you want it.

Becoming great requires sacrifice, and honestly, not everyone has that. Do I wish I was more mature back in the day? Absolutely! If I had just been more disciplined, I could’ve hit my goals. Learn from my mistakes and learn how to set up your expectations appropriately.

2. Habits Are Everything

There is so much I wish I knew back in college, but mainly, it would be just fundamental habit development. Developing a habit is easy for most to start, but difficult to maintain for all. Everyday is a battle to have you slip up. Here are some habits I wish I developed earlier:

• Prayer/Meditation – Whatever you believe in, you should always take time for yourself as soon as you wake up. The worst thing that you can do is grab your phone and start scrolling through. As someone who has battled with anxiety, it’s easy to forget how important individual time can be. Make sure to prioritize in your mornings to take care of yourself first.
• Supplements – If you are taking supplements (always consult a doctor first), you should be taking those every single morning. Supplements are easily the first things I forgot about in college, especially if I was just running late to class or it was a weekend. Understand that the consistency of your intake of supplements does impact your performance.
• Water Consumption – You need to be drinking water. I had to learn this the hard way, as I would go through workouts dehydrated and weak because I simply just didn’t have enough water that day. As I stated in the video, most schools give their student-athletes a Gatorade bottle at the beginning of the year. Use that and always keep tabs on how many of those you are consuming daily. On competition day and leading up to it, I would always be having water to both mentally and physically prepare myself for it. Drinking water is the fastest and easiest way to develop discipline.

Bottom Line: Get your habits right.

If you have systems in place (and tweak them as you go through college), you will see yourself steadily improve. That’s the beauty of compounding interest and you will see yourself slowly (but surely) outpace other student athletes.

My Mantra As a Student Athlete

I used to think about this all the time: when you are not doing your job correctly (taking care of your mental health, taking your supplements, getting enough water/sleep) – your competition is.

3. Track Your Progress

I wish I would’ve done this more in college. I would go into the weight room, and sometimes struggle with the same weights for weeks. The reality is that strength coaches often come and go. When I was at William & Mary, I had about three different strength coaches over for years. Don’t get me wrong – we had some world-class strength coaches, and there are a select few I find to be mentors to this day, but you need to be independent. It is my belief that all student athletes should have some way of keeping record of their lifts, water consumption, supplementation and sleep quality. If I had just kept closer tabs on the data on me, I would have realized several things faster: my flexibility, sleep quality and water intake were all lacking.

If you haven’t already, go on Canva and develop your own daily journal that you can keep record of all these things. I would also consult either your coach or your athletic trainer to keep you accountable. You will have documented evidence of where you are progressing and where you are not.

Be independent! Track all aspects of your life (to the best of your ability) to be able to look at the numbers! Numbers never lie. You can look back on what worked and what didn’t work.

4. Metrics do not define you

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve had a really bad practice, and it would ruin the rest of my day. Don’t be like me. Be better.

Metrics do not define you. So if your coach clearly shows favoritism to athletes because of their performances – just ignore it and focus on you. Your worth is not found in how well you compete at a championship meet or any of that. You are worth more than that, and you have to constantly remind yourself of this.

As a former student athlete, I have seen numerous amounts of people go through tough experiences at college. It’s a lot to deal with at 18-22 years old! You have to maintain getting good grades and managing a full-time job. It’s a huge commitment and not everyone can handle. On top of that, there is an unspoken pressure to perform, especially if you’re on scholarship.

5. Being A Student Athlete Isn’t for Everyone

Lastly, I wish I knew that being a student athlete isn’t for everyone. As previously mentioned, you are juggling so many things at once. It can be extremely difficult to manage at times, especially with track meets every weekend in the spring.

If you are an incoming freshman, I can almost promise you this: not everyone in your incoming freshman class will be by your side in graduation. I joined William & Mary with 8 other freshman guys. Only 4 remained by graduation from that original class.

People will quit. People will just lose their love for the game.

The point is that you have to decide if this is the right opportunity for you. If you think that you can handle it, give it your all. I know there were definitely times that I thought about quitting. But the thing that kept me going was my love for the sport.

6. Appreciate the Opportunity At Hand

If you are currently in college and an athlete, you have to remember that your days are limited. One of the mistakes I made in college, was not realizing it was going to end. Of course, I knew at my last meet that it would be my last performing in a W&M jersey, but I didn’t know that there is a lot that leaves with that too. As you grow up, a lot of people begin to identify you with your sport. They see your name and they associate you with the highlight reels and the victories. Let me tell you this: appreciate the opportunity you have at hand, because it’s some of the greatest days you’ll ever have. That’s why everyday at practice, you have to do your best. At every game, you have to do your best. Anything less than that is failure.

Therefore, appreciate every meet. Every competition you compete in is another opportunity to establish your legacy. You want to look back on your collegiate career and remember that this only lasts for 4-5 years. Every student athlete comes in with a similar goal: to be the best that they can be. Except, are you really backing your words with your actions?

Bottom line: Track & Field will change your life. Just stick with it.