Feb. 5, 2007

Periodically during the school year, softball captain Christina Guerland will provide a behind the scenes look at the team. In this installment, she writes about the dreaded early-morning practices the team endures during the month of February.

According to the Ivy League, our season officially begins on February 1. But for me, the season begins the moment the alarm goes off at 5:15 a.m. Welcome to the month of 6 a.m. practice! Every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in the month of February, the team practices in Coxe Cage (our indoor facility) from 6-8 a.m.

The reason? There are several. We share the facility with track and baseball, and there is not enough time for everyone to have an adequate practice in the afternoon/evening. Someone needs to take the morning shift. We avoid conflicts! From 6-8 a.m there is no class, no sections and no meetings to attend. Every member of the team will be present. Finally, it's a bonding experience. We check to make sure that everyone is awake and has not over slept their alarm (for their sake and their roommates'). We share our piece of fruit or granola bar with the teammate who forgot to grab something at dinner the night before. We eat breakfast together in Commons after practice.

Some of my best memories at Yale, and also some of the most quotable one-liners, have occurred at breakfast while the majority of the students are still asleep. We nudge each other during class to stay awake and push each other later in the day during our weight lifting workout. No one else on campus can relate. We look to our teammates for support, sympathy, and encouragement.

Technically, it is only 12 morning practices, which does not seem like a lot. But no one ever forgets the month of February. Each year the current members of the team receive emails, instant messages, text messages, etc. from alumni letting us know that they are thinking about us and to remind us of our sunny spring break trip only five weeks away! We've also been spoiled the last two years with coffee, juice, and Dunkin Donuts delivered to the locker room on the first day of 6 a.m.'s by past teammates. Thank you!

Although it is difficult to show much emotion at 5:45 a.m., everyone on the team is excited to have officially started the season. Our practices have been extremely efficient and we will be incredibly prepared for our Florida trip in March.

One 6 a.m. practice down, 11 to go. And a bit of advice: you might want to wait until Thursday (our day off) to talk to a softball player about anything of importance. We struggle the rest of the week.