Senior Reflection: Darik Dillard
8/11/2017 4:30:07 PM | General, Blog
As his former teammates continue to prepare for the next chapter in their Rice career's, Darik Dillard reflects on his journey from high school recruit to Rice graduate, four-time letter winner and one of the top 10 rushers in school history
Coming into Rice University,I really just had the high school mindset of I'm going to come in, take threeyears and then I'm going to go pro.
But after finishing my firstsummer and then my first year as a freshman, I realized three things: I had tobe flexible, I learned the power of surrendering and all my successes andtriumphs were a team effort.
Your Rice career teaches youthese things.
It sounds so cliché butpeople told me you have to be really good at managing your time. And that'ssomething I learned throughout my entire time at Rice. Having footballpractices and 8 a.m. classes, every time-gap had to be utilized well. Thiswould carry me into my professional life, into my social life and one day, whenI become a husband or father.
I also learned the power ofsurrendering.
As a student-athlete, you gothrough a lot of hard times. Being a student-athlete in general, you go througha lot of suffering, a lot of long nights studying and preparing for tests thatyou know you're going to fail, doing projects where your other teammates aren'thelping you or you can't help your teammates. But you realize, every successand triumph is a team effort--in the classroom or on the field.
You have a class that youindividually take or if you play a singular sport you have an idea of what youneed to do. Despite that singular play, you realize when you reach those pointsof success and triumph and you recognize all the individuals with you-thathelped you along through your good and bad times.
I've had a number of people,especially at Rice University, that helped me through those difficult times torealize those three things: flexibility, the power of surrendering and successand triumph are team efforts.