Connections Are at the Heart of the Experience

When I think about my time here, my mind doesn’t go to the grades I have earned or the milestones I have checked off. It drifts instead to the moments that didn’t look important at the time, the ones that were never scheduled on a calendar or on a syllabus, yet somehow became the moments that defined my experience here. Through the quiet, unplanned moments that truly taught me the true power of the bonds we build with others. 

It’s in the late night bus rides coming home from away games, where the hum on the road seems to stretch time and conversations turned into something both amusing and real. It’s in the quiet nights on duty with the TODs that turn into talks about life, about sports, about school, who we want to become, who we are. It’s in the endless conversations with the house directors, where a simple sentence like, “How was your day?” transforms into hours of laughter, vulnerability and truth. It’s in the coaches and teachers who believed in me and helped me discover a strength I didn’t even know I had. 

Those moments, as small as they seemed, taught me something profound: that connection isn’t something we create, but rather something we allow. It happens in the space between us, in the courage it takes to be known and in the patience it takes to truly know someone else.  

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that connection is the foundation of our lives. It pulls us toward each other. It shapes our stories. It stabilizes us when we feel lost. We spend so much time trying to build our resumes, define our identities and chase our futures, but when everything else fades, what remains are the connections we have built with others.  

And I think that is the real power of this place. It’s more than just classrooms and practices, it’s an intersection of lives that, for a brief moment, meet. It’s a place where strangers become friends, teachers become mentors and where the people around us shape who we are without us even noticing. 

And if there is one truth I’ve learned here, its this: The legacy we leave behind isn’t carved in the trophies we win or the titles we hold, it’s written in the souls of people we connect with.  

So as we move forward, as teachers, as classmates, as human beings, maybe the greatest thing we can do is to connect with one another. To truly see the people around us. Because one day, when we look back, those connections wont just be apart of the story, they will be the story.