Dear Gabe,
This letter to you is less about your life as an athlete and more about you personally and the way you choose to walk through this life and how you choose to affect the people that you encounter.
As far as football is concerned you will be fine. Your drive to be great and your willingness to work when others won’t will take your further than you ever could have imagined. The countless hours that you will put in over the next years will become your crutch to lean on in times of adversity when you begin to question yourself. You will face adversity. You will learn to use adversity as your ally and wield that energy in your favor throughout your life on and off the field.
You will soon begin to see that the game that you love will give you the perfect platform to affect change in the world around you. No matter how big or how small that change may be, you will feel that it is your duty as a human being to do your part. In the trying times that lie ahead, you will see more division, hate, and overall digression of people’s ability to empathize with one another than you could ever have imagined. I know it may be hard to understand now but your voice over time will prove to be far more valuable than anything that you could accomplish on a football field.
Trust your upbringing. You were raised right. Continue to show empathy and understanding to others even if it seems like an unpopular stance to take. People who oppose you will eventually come around. No matter what, always stay true to yourself and say what’s truly in your heart. You will slowly begin to see that you speak for more people than yourself.
Learn to embrace being alone. You will spark your greatest thoughts and come to your greatest realizations about the world and yourself in these precious moments of solitude.
Read more. Knowledge is the key to the rest of the world that is currently hidden from your sight. Be brave and unyielding in your quest for the truth. Ask questions to things that you do not understand.
Be accepting and tolerant to those who lose their way. You will need people to do the same for you when your trail goes cold, because it will. Embrace moments of darkness. You will always find the light again.
Accept change in yourself as well as in others. You will find this to be one of the greatest obstacles you face. As difficult as this will be for you, it will be something that you will overcome.
I know the things I’m speaking to you about might seem a bit heavy, but I know that you feel that unrelenting restlessness inside of you to not only be a great football player but also a great person. These things I ask of you are things that can’t be done in a day or a month. This is a life’s work of evolving as a person every day and working on yourself every moment. These things I ask of you will mold you into the player that you want to be on the field that people will be unable to deny, as well as a man whom people will respect and love off the field. Keep going against the grain and challenging the status quo, my friend.
Sincerely,
Your forever evolving self
Comments
I need to see the headwaters of this shit creek.
"We asked WSU receiver Gabe Marks, a nominee for MTRWestern's Seattle Male Sports Star of the Year Award, to write a letter to his 14-year-old self. Here's what Marks wrote."
Place your bets.
And for the last couple years, Gabe Marks.
I'm gonna miss his punk ass.
I'd tell you not to be such a fag, but your faggot ass wouldn't listen - besides, you are fag-tastic !!!
Faggingly Yours,
Pre Op
==÷÷===
Much more concise, he rambled way too much