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| Senior Night 2016, Top: Seniors Sara Madison, Saverina Chicka, and Megan Collins Bottom: Head Coach Geoff Braun (photos by Ron Szot) |
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| The Hero's Journey, first articulated by Joseph Campbell in 1949 in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". |
Take Harry Potter for instance. Harry was called to adventure when letters arrived at the Dursley's inviting him to Hogwarts. He departed with Hargrid to this school of magic. He reached a crisis when he met Voldemort for the first time, but received a treasure when the Sorcerer's Stone was destroyed. He returns to his ordinary life at the Dursley's, but now he knows he's a wizard.
Nothing so fantastic happens in real life, but the feelings are just as real.
Take the college athlete. The call to adventure could be the recruiting process and committing to a school. Departure could be moving away from home for the first time. Crisis could occur during preseason fitness testing, homesickness, conflict with teammates, depression, or any other difficult situation. The treasure is found in persevering through those problems.
But in our culture, all too often the return doesn't happen. There's nobody there at the end of the journey to recognize what we've been through, as Dumbledore does for Harry Potter. We go through crisis after crisis, collecting treasures that never get recognized, unconsciously craving for someone to tell us that we've changed.
Senior Night is significant because it functions as the return from being a college athlete. With graduation just a few months away, and the expectation that you'll soon function as an adult, it's significant when your coach tells you, "You're not the same person you were four years ago."
Congratulations to our 2016 seniors: Megan Collins, Sara Madison, and Saverina Chicka. You're no longer the same people.