Oh, man. The past couple days have brought me back straight to my freshman year of college. I struggled. I felt like I didn't fit in, and I struggled with many parts of the workouts. Some team members were cruel to me. Luckily for me, I had friends on the team from high school, and I had family close at hand.
Now take that situation, take away the friends and family. What do you have? Very little.
A freshman this year is being belittled and bullied by the sophomore girls and other freshmen. She isn't in the same dorms as everyone else, thus has fewer opportunities to hang out with the others. This, in a sense, has made her the chicken that everyone else pecks. As the upperclassmen, we didn't know this was going on, because we don't live in the dorms, and we don't have any classes with these little girls.
Our little hen finally had a meltdown Saturday, when it all caught up to her. I felt helpless as what to do to help. I gave her all the support I could, and got the other upperclassmen involved. I even had her talk to Coach, and have her realize he supports her. Regardless, she just wants to go home.
I talked to a good old friend today, and she mentioned she hears the swimmers gossip in one of her classes. They don't exactly say anything nice about this girl, but also, they don't say anything nice about our coach! The person who recruited them, gives them a scholarship, gives them an opportunity to be great! And all they do is complain?
So I will take this as a lesson: Beware of what malice the tongue can do, you never know what kind of impression you're making, and who's listening.
