STORY BY CARLY GRENFELL

I participated in an interview the other day with fellow teammate and classmate Liza Heap in which we talked about the tremendous success of our underclassmen thus far in the season and what it means to be a senior on a history-making team.

Although I walked out of the room feeling more sentimental than I did walking in, it was just what I needed. Those few minutes shifted my mindset.

As seniors, we hear time and time again to “leave a legacy.” While I fully believe in the power behind that phrase, leaving a legacy is not necessarily on a student-athlete’s mind, knowing that our days are numbered.

Shouldn’t everyone want to leave a legacy? Doesn’t everyone want to be remembered in some way? Of course. Every human being craves satisfaction of this capacity and it isn’t a bad thing.

But to me, it is less about the legacy and more about doing the things that even allow legacies to happen. If we are focused on the legacy, the end result, we turn a blind eye to what is right in front of us. We forget about the people who helped us get there. And at the end of the day, we have completely eliminated our ability to see the big picture clearly.

Drake University is that big picture. It is what brought us here and what has kept us here over the past several years.

Leaving a legacy does not motivate us, but we do believe in paying it forward to the place and the people who believe in us with everything they have.

As seniors especially, it is our last chance to pay our dues.

We don’t have to pay our dues, we get to and we want to. These dues are paid through a game we love and for a university we are privileged to represent.

We could easily go through the motions, be satisfied with a free education, content with our team’s success, believe our legacy has been made and move on.

I firmly believe that legacies transpire through unwavering belief in who you represent. That is how legacies are made and how they are defined.