Too many athletic seasons and careers end with 'would have, could have, should have'. There is probably a long list of former high school athletes who lament what they did not leave on the field and hopelessly wish they had a time machine that would give them a second chance; like Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite.

God blesses us with life and we only get one chance to make the most out of it. The problem many of us have is that we take life - and our athletic careers - for granted as if they had no end, but they do.

One day you will no longer be able to run fast, or at all. One day you will not be able to jump high and your ability to absorb punishment will diminish. It happens to everyone.

Which is why young athletes need to make the most out of every season that is available to them. Time catches up with everyone and your public school education years will run out sooner than you think.

For most of you, these are the prime years to excel athletically. Real Life is the arena - rather than the video game world - where your best performances should take place. Otherwise, you may find yourself years ahead from now looking back to these times like watching the same old movie again and again foolishly hoping for the ending to change.

Time stands still for no one and it never will. The sands of the hour glass consistently run and one day each and every one of our names will be erased no matter what our accomplishments were. The past is gone, the future has yet to come so focus on the PRESENT.

So to every student athlete out there, I offer this little poem off the top of my head: When it's time for me to hang them up and I have nothing left to wield, I hope to look myself in the mirror, content that I left it all on the field. When Goliath dared our entire army, I was the David who got in his face. And whether I won or lost the battle, I did it with class and grace. There is only one me in this world, God's personal creation. But not living a purpose filled life, is committing serious desecration. So when the final seconds have ticked away, and the ball has dropped to the floor. I hope to be able to look up and say, 'My lord, I could give no more'.

(Rey Sifuentes Jr. can be reached at rataman2@yahoo. com)