Trusting Yourself
By Camryn Rogers
It’s a continuous process that takes focus, skill, confidence. It takes time. It’s something that, as an international student-athlete, seemed so foreign to me while trying to navigate the labyrinth of college. But doing so has allowed me to start on a path that has forever changed my life.
I was born and raised in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada; a city about 30 minutes south of Vancouver and 30 minutes north of the border to the state of Washington. I grew up traveling back and forth to the US for day trips and vacations. It was not unusual for my Mom and I to drive to Seattle and back on a random Saturday, but I never thought that I would have the opportunity to live in the US, in California no less, pursuing a top-class educational and sporting environment. My Mom always taught me the importance of believing in yourself to achieve anything you set your mind to. If there is anyone to look up to, it’s her- a single parent who always ensured that we had the best life we could through hard work and determination. For me, it all started January 5th, 2012, when I made a last-minute decision to attend the first track practice of the year.
At that point, I had never heard of the hammer throw. I had done shot put and discus in school, but the hammer was different than anything else I could have imagined. Throwing was, and still is, my first and only sport. I was welcomed into a community of incredibly strong and wonderful people, many of whom I am lucky enough to call my friends. Through high school, I got better, stronger, and more powerful. My coach and I would have conversations about opportunities to go to the US for college. I remember him saying to keep my head down, keep studying, keep training, and let the results speak for themselves. “Trust yourself - trust the process,” he would say.
I trained four to five days a week in my early development. Sometimes even six, with two sessions a day. I was certainly focused, but there was still a part of me that needed to grow: faith. The faith I had in myself and my abilities. The first national team I was able to make was for the World U20 Championships in Poland when I was 16. I remember being on the plane with my stomach in knots and my thoughts flying a million miles an hour. My training up until then had been going very well and I felt ready to get into the circle and start throwing. On competition day though, my nerves got the best of me. I ended up coming last in the competition. I don’t think my Mom ever hugged me as hard as she did when I found her in the stands afterward. However, it was this competition where I began to put an extreme amount of pressure on myself. I started thinking. “Well, if I just train more then I’ll be ready for anything and there won’t be a time when I find myself unprepared.” And to an extent this is true. I was 16 and without international experience. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed and defeated, but this was a pivotal moment. I reminded myself of the journey I was on, to trust myself along the way, and that learning about myself and abilities takes time and experience. I had and still have so much passion for this event, and in my mind there would be no other option.
The World U20 Championships in Poland took place during the time when recruiting for college was at its busiest - the summer before senior year. Later in the evening after I had competed, I returned to the room I had been sharing with my teammate and suddenly felt overwhelmed: I was going to have to tell the college coaches about what happened. I sat down on my bed and began typing the messages, absolutely filled with anxiety. But not a mere 10 minutes later, the Berkeley coach replied, filling me with hope and support. “Camryn,” he wrote, “the first time you wear your country’s uniform is not easy. Every day of training builds up to that moment. The more you trust in yourself, the more you will trust the process to become better.” There were those words again about trust and giving myself time to learn and build confidence through unchartered territory. I took these words to heart. I wasn’t sure how to begin the long process of trusting in oneself, but I knew that I was willing to try.
I flew home feeling bittersweet. My first international competition had not gone as planned, far from it actually, but I was able to come back with new goals and more importantly, a new perspective. I decided to push forward with optimism instead of doubt. I knew where I wanted to be athletically and mentally, but was unsure what steps to take on the path to success. I was open, as I still am, and try to see all situations as learning tools for now and for the future. There is always a lesson from every experience, sometimes more from the ones that didn’t go as expected. It’s how we process and use that feeling, how we apply it on our path to our success, that teaches us to trust and have faith.
When I began selecting my official visits for colleges, those feelings of excitement, anxiety and opportunity hit me all at once. Specifically, it was my visit to Berkeley that gave me the push I needed. Cal was my second official visit out of four, and as I walked around campus, meeting the team, talking with my (now current) coach, I had that moment where it all came together and presented itself to me. I realized this is where I wanted to be. It was such a powerful sense of confidence and conviction that I wasn’t sure how to react at first. My Mom had come on both of my visits, and I knew she would support whichever school that I decided to attend, but I knew she was ecstatic on the last night of our time at Cal when I told her, “This is it Mom, I need to be at this school.” We sat down at breakfast 12 hours later and I signed my Letter of Intent. As we sat in the airport on our way home, I called all of the coaches and thanked them for their interest, expressing my deepest gratitude. They were and still are part of this incredible journey, and everyone along the way has helped me to develop and grow. To trust the process and make the hard decisions that are the best for me.
In the weeks following the visit, there were a number of people who asked me why I hadn’t gone on my other visits, questioning my actions, wondering if I might regret doing so later on. But the moment I knew I wanted to be at Cal was one rooted totally and completely in self-trust. It was the first step I didn’t know I was waiting for. I was told throughout my recruiting experience that it was me alone — that I made the final choice in wherever it was I would go to university. Everyone could tell me their own thoughts, but at the end of the day I would be the one living with my decision. Returning home from the Cal visit, I felt like I had found a place that I could call a second home, where I would be surrounded with friends-turned-family. This was an important part to me since I would be living in a whole different country.
This choice taught me how to begin trusting myself. Through this trust, I felt like I discovered a new Camryn. One that knew how to push harder during training; one that knew when she needed a break; one that knew how to fight for herself. It was invigorating. I carried this newfound trust into my freshman year, feeling like a whole new person. I still got tired, I still got stressed, I still experienced all of the hiccups typical of a freshman experience. I had to learn how to do taxes in a different country, how to renew my visa, and many other situations that are just part of being an international student. But no matter what the scenario that I found myself in, each one was a new step that cemented my abilities to find a solution, to believe that I was capable of achieving it. It was because of that very first step that I was lucky enough to be surrounded by the most wonderful support system here at school: my coach, teammates and friends.
Trusting yourself is a long journey. I’ve had bumps in the road and moments of doubt where I’ve questioned whether or not it would pay off. But I’m grateful for my support system who have and continue to always return my self-trust tenfold. After training, trials, and tribulations, I competed once again at U20 Worlds in Finland in 2018, and the mental strength and confidence I had built in the two years since Poland was incomparable. My mom and Coach cheered in the stands as I won the gold medal, and we listened as the Canadian anthem echoed throughout the stadium during the ceremony. After another year building on the technique and lessons that got us to Finland, they cheered once again in Austin, Texas as I became the 2019 NCAA Champion. Trust was proving to be paramount.
As Covid-19 keeps the future of competition so unknown, I have been able to continue building this foundation of trust. Trust that I will push forward, trust that my coach and I will relentlessly work toward what we want to achieve, and trust that one day I will be able to step into the circle once again and throw the hammer harder than ever before.
Trust that when the time comes, I am ready.