Fall sports have ended, and our student athletes have to wait until next season. However for seniors, there will be no next season at JC. For them, there are no more games on our fields. Their last season game was their last JC game.

For other seniors, that was their last game ever. They won’t be playing in college, but it doesn’t matter if they are playing in college or not; the feeling of playing your last high school game is not something to look forward to.

Some seniors may be glad their sports are ending, but when they eventually do, they are still left with a bit of an empty feeling. For most seniors, they have been on the team for four years. It has been a major part of the high school career, and now it is over. Just like that.

There are many seniors who played on our fall sports teams and have no intention of playing that sport in college. There are a variety of reasons why this is, but those aren’t really important. What is important is that they had to say one of the hardest goodbyes of their lives.

When you play a team sport, you don’t think of them as your team. You think of them as brothers or sisters. Family. When you play your last game or run your last meet, you will never experience anything like that again. Even if you continue to play the sport, those relationships you have made with your teammates are one-of-a kind. Saying goodbye to them is painful. Very painful.

Luckily for JC, many of our senior athletes were able to end the year with championship wins.

Our women’s and men’s cross country teams brought home titles, along with the varsity field hockey team and the equestrian team.

These positive endings made it a little easier to say goodbye, but in the end, that last bus ride home affected the seniors deeply.

Another hard goodbye for the seniors was to their coaches. These coaches are the people who shaped them into better athletes, people, and students. The coaches at JC are a special breed. Each of them cares deeply for every single player, wanting their players to be successful both on and off the field.

Saying goodbye to a coach is like saying goodbye to a loved one. Someone who has been a part of your life as much as a coach has will always leave a deep impact on you. Some students don’t realize it until it’s over, unfortunately, but this doesn’t stop them from reminiscing about all the memories they have of those coaches and the fact that they will always remember them.

If you see seniors who played a fall sport, go up and ask them how they are handling their sport ending. Ask them about their favorite memories or when they started to play their sport. Talk to them about what they went through to get where they are. Most importantly, ask them how hard it is to say farewell. Juniors are at the point now where they realize their next season is their last. Underclassmen have a way to go, but I promise you that it sneaks up on you a lot faster than you think.

Seniors, thank you for playing.