Senior Hayley Leake has the dubious honor of being the oldest player on the roster in 2007-08. The Billikens will count on her experience in the backcourt to run the offense with the same efficiency and heady play that she has demonstrated in her 3 years as point guard

In addition to always making the correct pass and avoiding three pointers at all costs, Hayley loves discovering new music, reading the nutritional content of everyone else’s food, and writing really big words on paper.

She becomes the first senior to ever write in the player diaries and we look for her to give us a different perspective of a collegiate student athlete as someone who’s been there and done that. Let’s follow Hayley as she experiences her last 5 months of being a Division 1 basketball player.
The Freshman Diaries – HAYLEY LEAKE


Taking a Timeout – Diary Entry #3


It is pretty standard. Things get going way too fast. Mistakes. Uncharacteristic plays. Momentum shifts. Irrational thinking. You lose control—even for a brief moment. Coach has seen enough. TIMEOUT.

Lets take this a little further…If you are at this level—coach, player, manager and anything in between—you are here for a reason. You can be pushed. You can perform. You can find ways to get it done. Nobody is questioning that. However, our capabilities to multi-task can sometimes get us in trouble. Take me for instance—a typical day in my life can get pretty hectic. I teach. I go to my college classes. I go to weights. I go to practice. I then use any remaining time to get my homework done. If I did not have some pretty amazing people in my life, I would go from one thing to the next CONTINUOUS—just getting x, y, and z done. This is what society does—rush, rush, rush—and it is easy to get caught up in it all. This is BAD. Before you know it, the day is over and you have not stopped to call your family and tell them that you love them. Before you know it, the week is over and you did not realize you forgot your best friend’s birthday. Before you know it, months and months pass you by and you completely miss the journey of it all—the journey of what you do and why you are doing it—and even more, you have somehow missed the people around you that make what you do special.

There are some very successful people in this world. They have worked their entire lives to get somewhere—to do something—to be something. They have sacrificed their time, effort, and even significant people in their lives to make a goal, a vision, a dream come true… They have made it. And they will continue to make it. But, will they ever truly get it? The key… The key to making it all come together is keeping work in check with the small details that turn out to be anything but small. If we keep our heads down—working and working—and do not look up from time to time to see what makes what we do so special, we will lose our purpose. We will lose our perspective. We will lose valuable moments of time where we could have been making someone else’s life better with a simple gesture, a simple smile, a few simple words…

So, instead of getting an extra half-hour of work done, stressing about things you cannot change or control, or seeing how fast you can move from one thing to the next—take a timeout. Take a breath. Smile. And make a difference that only you can make for someone that you care about. I promise you that it will be worth it. Life is not a race. Not one second that you stop, sit-back, and really enjoy will ever be wasted. These are the best moments of our lives.


Hayley Leake
Class of 2008
Diary Entry #3
 
 

© Copyright Shimmy Gray, All Rights Reserved.