My whole life, I’ve thought of myself as an ‘indoor kid’ — a term my family used to describe me once they realized I wasn’t as athletically inclined as my peers. When we were asked to run a mile in physical education class, I would conveniently make up excuses to get out of it. It didn’t help that my family’s idea of a fun vacation involved hiking and biking their way through every corner of the globe (not that I’m not very grateful for those trips, Mom and Dad).

Over the past few years, though, I’ve found myself orbiting athletics much more. I have only one sibling, a 13-year-old, 6-foot-tall brother whom I’m very close to, and his life revolves around basketball. When he’s not playing, he’s watching. And when he’s not watching, football or baseball is probably on TV. So, when I visit home back in San Francisco, sports are always on the agenda.

My parents are like a much tamer version of Dance Moms — the super-involved parental units who travel across state lines to every game, competition, and tournament, wanting nothing more than to see their kid succeed. And, as the non-athletic sibling, I played volleyball in middle school but was never good enough to take it further, eventually giving it up for more ‘indoorsy’ hobbies like theater and journalism. (And just to clarify: I’ve never once reported on sports.)

Ironically, the very teams at Northwestern that got me into sports aren’t exactly dominating the national collegiate athletic scene. I’ve sat through many grueling fourth quarters and second halves of football and basketball, both outdoors and indoors, in sweltering heat and freezing cold. My love for athletics feels even more ironic because there isn’t a huge sports game culture at Northwestern, though I’ll admit the scene has improved since my first year. I would often beg my friends to stay past halftime at a chilly football game or try to convince them to sign up for basketball games in the dead of February, even when they had no intention of actually going.

But there was something about these teams that drew me in — the same girl who would ask her dad to change the channel when football or basketball was on. It probably wasn’t their stellar record that kept me coming back, but the indisputable fact that athletic events are one of the few times I’ve seen a significant portion of the student body unite around a common cause. As Northwestern students, our schedules are jam-packed, and while the days feel long, the quarters feel short, and the academic years feel even shorter. Sports games gave me a much-needed break from my studies and a chance to see Northwestern in action, making the school feel larger than my tiny Medill bubble. For example, take the February 2023 basketball 64-58 victory over No. 1 Purdue, when it seemed like the entire Northwestern student body sprinted onto the court at Welsh-Ryan Arena. (Yes, I’m still seething about missing this game.) When else do we feel that happy together during a winter quarter at Northwestern?

Sure, our teams might not make it to the final rounds of March Madness or the College Football Playoff, but they give us something to rally behind during some of the darkest and coldest days of the year. The best part? I realized student athletes are just like us. They experience the same highs and lows of studying at Northwestern and living in Evanston, and that’s humanized athletes in a way I never saw when watching pros on TV with my family. The phrase “Celebrities — they’re just like us” always makes me laugh, because we’re all simply human—navigating similar struggles, whether we’re representing our university on a national stage or just trying to survive midterm season.

So, I’d like to apologize to anyone who knew me during the fall and winter quarters of my senior year. I know I was pretty insufferable at times, but following Northwestern athletics helped me fall back in love with my dream school and made it that much easier to push through a particularly bleak final winter in the Midwest.