Junior Autumn Burks’ mental state of mind is what makes her an exceptional athlete.

Autumn plays lacrosse for Elite Lacrosse Club, and her goal is to go varsity for John Carroll’s lacrosse team.
Autumn trains very hard. She wakes up every other morning and trains at 6 in the morning and then goes to school, and she goes to practice twice a week as well. Autumn is in amazing physical shape and a top runner, but the thing that is the most impressive about her is her mental shape.
Autumn prepares before every game by reminding herself why she plays. Autumn plays for her parents, for her younger brother and for the younger generation of lacrosse.
Lacrosse has taught Autumn many things: how to be a teammate, how to strive in adversity and how to motivate herself further and further. For some time, Autumn played a team that really did nothing but build her mentally. The coaches pushed her, drove her to a different kind of strength.
When Autumn would be down, she would tell herself, “As long as you are working hard and putting in effort, that is all that matters.”
Autumn has had to encourage herself through times like this because, without being strong, she would have struggled. Autumn learned a lot of lessons she uses today from being on that team.
Autumn pulls lessons from what she learned when she started lacrosse, she started back when she was six and has learned so much in those 11 years of playing. One of the lessons she lives by day-by-day is “Motivation. You can’t just slack because if you do, you will lose all the skills you have worked so hard for.”
Autumn’s favorite feeling of the sport is being on the line, waiting for the chirp of the whistle and then balls in the air and anything could happen. Her favorite feeling is knowing that there are 10 seconds, and in those 10 seconds, she could get the ball and score, and it all could start over again for another set of 10 seconds.
Before the whistle blows, Autumn reminds herself what happens happens, “I control what I control.”
Autumn is a junior and has been on the JV team for the past two years getting ready for her big varsity year this year.
In Autumn’s downtime she does like to relax as athlete do need to rest their minds and bodies.
Autumn shows her dedication to lacrosse and said that the sport has made her mentally stronger.