Essay #19

I somehow knew how to run before I learned to walk, according to my parents. I was in constant motion. My older sister inspired me to play soccer, my favorite sport in elementary school, and this allowed me to burn excess energy. I also loved basketball, and I eventually began swimming and playing rugby and field hockey, but no sport really clicked. Although nobody teased me overtly about my weight, I knew my body didn’t look like the bodies of other kids who played sports. It seemed like every 12-year-old guy in my school had a six-pack. “What were their parents feeding them?” I wondered. “Were they on steroids?” At five feet five inches and 160 pounds, I wasn’t comfortable enough with my body to continue swimming. I was too slow and lacked footwork to play soccer. Fearing injuries involved with rugby, I didn’t try out. During eighth grade, however, I discovered squash, and the racquet felt so natural in my hand—almost like an extension of it. 

Since I’d just moved from Chile to Maryland during seventh grade, I hadn’t had much time to make friends before COVID-19 shut down my social life, so I didn’t have any sparring partners. My mother, desperate to get me out of the house and moving, enrolled me in a squash clinic. The coach explained the basics of the game, and one of the most satisfying sensations was being able to hit the ball as hard as I could and hear it crack against the front wall just above the red line. I started taking more lessons and got better until right before freshman year, when my coach suggested that I try out for my high school team. Two weeks later, when I just barely made the varsity team as a substitute, I was ecstatic. Unlike times in my life when others selected me for rugby and football teams because of my oversized body, this time the coach chose me because of my efforts and potential.  

Our training felt like boot camp as we ran multiple sets of 20 court sprints in a minute and endured a ruthless regimen of calisthenics: push-ups, planks, wall sits, and mountain climbers. The taste of sweat dripped into my mouth as I bent over to catch my breath. During the hundreds of games I played in practice and matches, I won absolutely none of them. Players returned every ball I hit with ease as if they were doing simple warm-up drills. Eventually, however, I began winning—even though some opponents still didn’t take me seriously. During the finals of nationals during junior year, I overheard an opponent whisper to his teammate, “Bro, look at him; just move him around, and you’ll win.” Instead of letting those insulting words get to me, I steamrolled him by winning three straight games. The weight that once felt like it was pulling me down suddenly turned into my strength. Thanks to the relentless training regimen, body fat turned into muscle, and I was now quicker, so I could get to the center of the court faster than my opponents, which helped me dominate rallies. 

When I stopped seeing myself as the kid who was too slow or too heavy to play sports and realized that I could push past my previous physical and aerobic limits, my confidence grew exponentially. Instead of shying away from social gatherings, I participated in them and began thriving instead of merely surviving. Now that I’m so much more comfortable in my own skin, I see every challenge as a new opportunity to test the limits of who I can become. Squash has given me a sense of confidence I never had before. My positive body image translated to a more optimistic social and emotional mindset, which I think will make me a much more outgoing, resilient, successful college student.