REMARKS MADE BY

LESLIE LUPIEN

junior member of the basketball team

Good evening fellow student-athletes, coaches, administrators and friends. It is a great honor for me to be standing before you this evening and speaking on behalf of this year’s graduating class of student-athletes. It is hard to believe that just three years ago, we were freshman—entering into this chapel for the first time and waiting anxiously to hear about the Assumption College Athletic community of which we were to become a part. 

So much has changed over the past three years: we have learned countless lessons, experienced personal growth, and also accomplished many amazing feats…like the baseball team’s 2009 NCAA regional tournament appearance, the men’s basketball team’s 2009 Northeast-10 championship, and the transformation of our college swim club into a highly competitive division-II team.
Although it is tempting for me to discuss the strides that each athletic program has made in the past few years, I would instead like to focus my speech tonight on the future, and what it is that I believe each of us should do in order to take full advantage of our time here at Assumption. 

So let’s start now. We are gathered here tonight to celebrate the beginning of a new year of athletic competition. A new year--two hundred and fifty-two days, in which our twenty-one teams will compete in over three hundred and eighty three games, meets and matches. Three-hundred and eighty-three. Though this may sound like a lot, this number does little reveal the amount of time and effort that each of us will ultimately commit to our team and our school.

I will use the women’s basketball team as an illustration. During the course of this school year, the members of my team will practice for over two hundred and twenty hours on the court, twenty-four hours on the turf, and four hours in the pool; we will lift more than ninety times and watch game films of the opposing team before and often after each of our twenty-eight games; we will play pick-up more than twenty-four times, and enter the gym to shoot on more than one hundred and ten occasions.

The reason that I have compiled these numbers and chosen to share them here tonight is not because I wish to make some bold statement about our basketball team or because I wish to make our freshman nervous. Rather, it is my intent to merely call your attention to one undeniable fact: a long journey lies ahead of each of us—even us seniors who have only one year remaining.
We have one year--two hundred and fifty-two days, the majority of which will contain some sort of athletic activity.

Though it may be tempting for many athletes to begin counting down the number of practices, sprint workouts, or early morning ifts that lie ahead, this is certainly not the way that each of us is intended to live.

Every day is a precious gift, and every moment spent at a practice or game contains within in it the opportunity for each of us to learn more about our sport, improve our fitness and skills, to prove ourselves as individuals, and of course to bond with our teammates and coaches as we strive for team success.

These opportunities will be there every day—every time that you walk onto the practice field or court, dive into the pool, push off into the lake, or skate onto the ice. Each and every moment you will be confronted with a choice: you can choose to merely get through what you are doing or you can seize the opportunities that are present before you. You can let your talents go unnoticed or you can choose to push yourself and your teammates on every sprint, work your hardest on every play, and allow your strength and ability to shine. 

I challenge you to take this step. Recognize that each day you spend here at Assumption is full of opportunity. Realize that although there will be many times that you will struggle and many times that you will falter, you each have within you the strength of body, mind, and spirit to continue moving towards your goals.

Play your hardest and push yourself beyond your limits as you work toward team success. And when you feel as though you have done enough… dare to do more. Realize that your activities as an athlete are but a limited part of your experience here at Assumption. Understand that as a student-athlete you are placed a position where you have both the capacity and the responsibility to make a difference in the lives of others in the community.

You can reach out to kids and become a mentor in an afterschool program; you can embrace a cause and dedicate yourself to both spreading awareness and raising money for its mission; you can take the time to give that extra encouragement to a teammate, or go over after a game and say hello to the six-year-old fan whose face you see so often. 

For all of you that do not know me, my name is Leslie Lupien and I am senior biology major and member of the Women’s basketball team here at Assumption. Within the past year, I have served as a mentor at the St. Peter’s after school program, been a coach for the Holden Youth TOP soccer program, and volunteered with the Massachusetts Special Olympics. I have participated in three Relay for Life events, raced in a triathlon to raise money for breast cancer, and ridden one hundred and thirty-five miles across Connecticut to raise money and awareness for a program that serves the needs of kids with cancer. Please trust me when I say that you have both the time and ability to do these things and so much more.

When your athletic career at Assumption comes to its end, you will not remember the number of practices that you had, or the number of times that you saw the sunrise as you went down to a morning workout. The soreness and occasional physical pain that you encountered will be but a faint memory. Yet the pride you have from knowing that you did all that you could both on and off the court is something that you will take with you for the rest of your life. So I challenge you: move forward with a positive attitude, seize each moment that lies ahead, and once you’ve done all that is expected of you, dare to do more.

I would to thank you all for your attention. Have a great night.