Church Assembly talk: Jackie Morrison '18
I know that when you all think of me, you think, "hardened Division 1 college athlete." I am here to assure you, however, that I wasn't always a gym rat with a will of steel. Believe it or not, I faced many athletic obstacles in my climb to peak female performance. I am just like anyone else in this room.
As too many of you know, as a child I was particularly....round. This unfortunate shape resulted in a severe lack of coordination and insufferable clumsiness. But luckily I made up for that with unbearable social awkwardness.
To combat these weaknesses I decided that it was time to stop watching Harry Potter for seven hours a day and maybe see what exercise was like. I took up basketball and lacrosse, and let me tell you, that was when my true potential revealed itself. I became known as the Athlete of the Family. A title that is not too hard to defend, considering that my sister is emo and my brother is a full-time gamer.
My athletic achievements soared once I arrived at the Abbey. I got cut from two separate teams that first year and continued to nurture my basketball prowess by accepting the appointment of Boys' Varsity Hockey Manager. A demanding position that truly challenged both my mental and physical stamina.
Undaunted by these setbacks, I resolved to continue my pursuit of strength and agility by putting time in at the fitness center. One day per week for half an hour. I should've known not to push myself so hard. During one of my regularly scheduled light jogs on the treadmill, I felt ambitious and turned the speed up to 7.0. This overexertion resulted in my legs going out from under me. I was holding on for dear life as my knees repeatedly slapped the rotating belt while the actual athletes looked on with disgust. I have been banned from the fitness center since that day. Lesson learned, and onto my next challenge.
After being brutally rejected from the soccer team, I was finally deemed worthy for a promotion to Varsity during my Sophomore Year. After my very first game, I was delighted to hear that my varsity debut was finally catching the media's attention. In the Beacon, on the sports page was a picture of me perched on the bench. The caption roughly read "Jackie Morrison, girls' varsity soccer MANAGER, struggling to keep warm while taking stats..."
You might call that an editorial glitch. I call it sabotage at the hands of the 2018 Player of the Year, Kate Hughes. Jealousy is not pretty.
Shockingly, this was not the only time that the paparazzi tried to destroy my Abbey athletic career. Somehow they managed to get ahold of perhaps the least flattering photo in existence. It is an action shot of me sailing: I am halfway out of the boat and mid-laugh, which makes it appear as though I was born chinless, and my flaccid arms flap in the wind. Think I'm exaggerating? Just check the homepage of the Portsmouth Abbey School website. Whoever is responsible for this atrocity, I will find you.
At preseason before my Fifth Form year, it started to look like my long-overdue soccer talent never was going to arrive. I wrote a long email to our new coach, Dr. Zins, apologizing for my pathetic performance and requesting that he find it in his heart to not drop my name from the varsity roster. He did as I asked, but unbeknownst to me, he saved that desperate email for two years and so thoughtfully read it aloud on Senior Day in front of the entire team and their parents. So nice. But putting that betrayal aside, he did believe in me, and some would say I had become the most integral part of the team. Thanks to me, the scorebook was kept in pristine condition for two consecutive seasons.
That spring I sustained a serious head injury. When asked how it happened, I usually
replied offhandedly that it was "sailing related," which sounds cool. In fact, I sustained major concussion from hitting my head repeatedly on the door of the trailer where we keep our sails.
Come to think of it, maybe that explains the look on my face in that sailing picture.
Brain damage is not pretty.
After spelling out all of my athletic shortcomings I am both amused and slightly depressed. The question I most frequently get asked by my enormous fan base is, were you a born athlete? Okay, after 17 years I am ready to admit it: I was not. For a long time, every time I was cut from another team it felt like the end of the world. Repeatedly falling and hitting my head on things was absolutely mortifying to me. Not being good at sports was something I hated about myself. I always felt like "the chubby girl," and I still remember the burning humiliation in grade school gym class.
We are all told to work on the things we are not naturally good at, and that that hard work will always pay off. I am here to tell you to forget that and just give up. A lot of times you will not excel at things you try, or in my case, you will utterly fail. But instead of beating your head against the wall (or the trailer door), just be at peace with it. This truth applies here at the Abbey and in every realm of our lives. Sports, grades, dancing, popularity, completing a singular pull up, the ability to use the treadmill without a safety clip: sometimes we just need to give ourselves permission to accept defeat.
In my opinion, the most crucial skill to acquire during your Abbey career is the ability to laugh at yourself. If I hadn't developed that talent, I probably would be living alone in a cave or under a different name by now.
What I mean to say is, don't be too hard on yourself, embrace embarrassment, and beware the dangers of the gym.
Thank You.