For an athlete and a sorority girl, the two very best parts of your college experience are your team and your sisters. You don’t know what you’d do without chapter on Sunday nights and practice literally any other night. There is no denying that these two groups of women define who you are for these four years. Unfortunately, these two commitments clash more often than not.
You show up to rituals looking homeless.
This is by far the worst. A lot of the time, your most cherished traditions with your sorority take place at the most inopportune times: right after practice. To avoid a fine, you decide to attend ritual, but that means you roll up to a white dress affair looking like you’ve never heard of a shower or makeup. Changing from Norts into a nice dress does not make up for the fact that you’re still rocking a half-fallen, sweaty ponytail from your workout. Because you’re the only one who looks homeless, this also makes for really hideous photo ops and embarrassing tags on Facebook.
You have to fight the instinct to “sorority squat” in your team photo.
After years of conditioning to pose in the most feminine and figure-flattering way possible, you mistakenly try to do a skinny arm pose or stand with pretty feet in your team photo. That doesn’t fly with your teammates, who insist on taking intimidating “game face” pictures and squaring up with the camera as if they were in battle formation.
You wonder if you can personalize your team backpack.
And by that, I mean monogram it. As awesome as it is to flaunt your school spirit everywhere you go, you feel the need to also represent your tendency to love all things monogrammed. Nothing says “split personality” like a hot pink monogram or philanthropy ribbon on an otherwise badass black duffel bag. And sweatshirt. And gloves.
You’re confused about which stereotype you belong to.
Every day, you have to decide whether you’re willing to put in the effort required to fix your hair and put on a perfectly planned outfit before having to change clothes and sweat off your makeup at practice later. You like to look put-together, but having to change clothes multiple times a day leads to laundry overload. You usually end up wearing letter shirts and leggings as a happy compromise, which actually matches most of your sisters and your teammates.
You are the go-to athlete for your sisters during recruitment.
When PNMs come to your house during recruitment, you are literally the only girl your sisters think of when the topic of conversation falls to sports. You spend the entirety of your night explaining the athletics department and recruiting high school athletes for intramurals, although you’ve never experienced the luxury of playing on an intramural team.
Living the life of an athlete and a sorority girl is hard. It takes a ton of extra time and effort to learn the new pledge class after missing every sisterhood event this year, to remain connected with your big after being absent from four family dinners in a row, and to uphold the reputation of a semi-functioning adult when you wear a messy bun and baggy sweats to class every day. But just like during your weekly yoga sesh, it’s all about finding balance..
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SoSratSoCollege
Between cheering for basketball games and studying for her art ed degree, SoSratSoCollege enjoys sarcastically using the term "srat" and making others feel uncomfortable. Her hidden talents include rapping every word to every Eminem song ever written and devouring a Taco Twelve Pack by herself.
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