Why I Won't Stick To Sports: David Roddy
My voice tells the world who I am as a person
David Roddy
Why I Won’t Stick to Sports is a first-person series written by Colorado State student-athletes. Athletes nationally are told to “stick to sports”, but as members of the community, they have ideas, motivations and a passion for creating meaningful change in the world. Their talents and knowledge are not limited to fields of play. In their own words, this is why our student-athletes will not stick to sports.
I will start out this essay with a story:
It was my junior year of high school. I was going about the year the same way I was the two previous years, getting the best grades that I can and working to be the best athlete I can. A faculty member at my school came up to me and asked if I would like to apply for a trip to a leadership conference in Anaheim, Calif. The conference was called the Student Diversity Leadership Conference.
This trip sounded very interesting, but, as a basketball player, it conflicted with the first two games of my season. I quickly denied the opportunity because I wanted to play those two games. A few weeks went by and the faculty member came back up to me asking yet again if I wanted to go. They were really adamant on me applying and going to this conference. I finally gave in and decided to attend the conference with one of my close friends at the time and four other students.
We landed in Anaheim and finally made it to the check-in stand. When I walked up to the table, I heard a looming roar of voices coming from the convention center a few steps in front of me. We open the door to the auditorium and there are 10,000 students with pure joy, happiness and excitement on their faces, dancing to music and talking to each other. It looked like I just walked into a concert. This propelled my energy levels up and squashed all social anxiety I had at the time. It was amazing, I was being myself for the first time in a long time.
The reason why I share this experience is because it changed my life. Through that conference I learned how to be empathetic, open minded and thoughtful with everything I do in life. I model my leadership through what I learned through that conference and my mentors still to this day. I will never forget that experience.
As a student-athlete, I have had many great experiences with both my teammates and my coaches along my sports career. I have learned to fight through adversity, cooperate with others for a common goal, and best of all, gain friendships that will last me a lifetime. It is important to use my voice for change because of the platform that I have. The people of Fort Collins have been amazing in fact that they truly believe in us and show us support in our athletic ventures. But, it is also important for them to know who we are as people and not just athletes.
It is important to voice my concerns because there are people who still have no voice or they are belittled whenever they speak up. I plan on sharing my experience being an athlete of color, a student, a son and a friend. I want to knock down the barrier of an athlete and a fan because, at the end of the day, we are both human beings. We have emotion, we have opinions and we have decisions we have to make on a daily basis.
I hope that everyone will listen to each other with an open heart and mind no matter if there are differences in opinions or lifestyles because there is room for both to grow. There is no absolute answer. I hope and pray we can progress in loving each other no matter our differences.
God Bless
David Roddy is a sophomore on the men’s basketball team who earned honorable mention All-Mountain West honors from the media, academic All-Mountain West recognition and was named a Mountain West Scholar-Athlete. He is a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council.