It's hard to believe that my very first Division I college basketball game is coming up. It feels like just the other day we were doing our pre-season conditioning in September; our team was in our sweaty grey shirts running shuttles, doing bleachers, and struggling our way through boxer abs (well...at least for me). And now we are already four weeks into practice and the anticipation of my first game just keeps building and building.

 When I was young, I thought of college basketball as a bunch of six-foot-tall women with scary big muscles and deep voices. And with our first game coming up, I still find that my imagination of huge, scary basketball players intimidates me. However, I keep forgetting that I am now one of the big scary basketball players I imagined when I was younger (minus the deep voice). I have to keep reminding myself that once I step onto that basketball court against Robert Morris on Friday, those girls that I once thought were so big and scary won't seem so big anymore.

Practices seem to be going smoother for me. The first couple weeks were very frustrating for me trying to adjust to the level of the college game. Things like sprinting everywhere on the floor and going hard each and every moment were things that I was not use to coming out of high school. But finally I've started to notice some of my old work habits fading and I feel more in the groove with practice. Although, sometimes I might find myself jogging places on the floor, but of course that's after Coach Lindsay yells at me.

I have two worlds at Kent: the basketball world, and the fashion world. Once practice is over, I get into my fashion gear and hustle all the way over to the Rockwell Building where I take my ever-so-demanding fashion design classes. Some people don't know how I can be a fashion design major and play basketball at the same time. But while most college students are studying from a textbook, I am sewing on "buttons and bows" (as my coach calls it) and drawing pictures and making fashion mood boards. It may be a lot of tedious hands-on work, but I enjoy it very much. And after a frustrating practice, instead of dreading going to class, I am always looking forward to class to sew on my "buttons and bows" and drink Starbucks and feel like a semi-normal student.

One of the awesome things about being a college athlete, besides the free clothes, is the friends that you make. The girls on the team already feel like part of a family, and being far away from home in Wisconsin, it's nice to have. Tamzin Barroilhet, one of the other freshmen, and I spend the most time together. She is French with an English accent and says things like "I fancy" and "most probably" and "Maths" (like there are multiple math(s) or something).  And after all this time we spend together, I find myself busting out an English accent also and wanting to put an "s" and the end of "math".

So we are only a couple days away from our team being put to the test in our first game of the season!!  Six long weeks of preseason wasn't for nothing!  So many different emotions are running through me currently and I'm not sure what to expect but I do know that I am excited for 1) winning, 2) sleeping on buses, and 3) travel suits.

Thanks for reading my blog - be sure to check back often with updates from me and my teammates!

Go Flashes!

Leslie