My Undergraduate Experience, Part 2: Otterbein - When Everything Changed

          Welcome to part 2. I am struggling with how to open this post. Do I just jump right into the story or should I ease you into it? The only tidbit that I can muster up for easing you into this part of my story is a reference to Hollywood movies. This really isn’t that original, but I suppose that I’ll let you be the judge. How many movies have you seen where the protagonist is a college freshman (usually a male) who arrives on campus with a determination to reinvent him or herself (e.g. Accepted, An Extremely Goofy Movie, Road Trip, Monster’s University, Drumline, etc.)? Maybe the similarities aren’t that distinct, but to me, it seems like a familiar scenario is set up in these movies. Why? Perhaps, this moment is so often used because it is such a profound period in a person’s life - for reasons that are pretty obvious. Generally, in these movies, the protagonist is pictured as some sort of an outcast who enacts a strategy to try to fit in on campus (usually by joining a fraternity or sorority, let’s not get into my opinion on that). There are various difficulties, stock college characters, and a happy ending where the protagonist learns how to truly define him/herself, blah, blah, blah. As lame as this all sounds, I do fit this process in a way.

Right Before Otterbein

        

This was at my grad party. August, 2011.
Not sure what my dad was doing.

Yes, I had a strategy going into Otterbein – doesn’t everyone have one going into college? In my last post, I mentioned how conscious I was about the way I desired to be perceived by others. This entailed having a Christian identity, athlete status, success as an honors student, and a funny/charismatic personality, among other things. None of that changed when I went away to school, except now I had the chance to develop that image with a new group of people after honing my craft in my senior year. Not only did I like Otterbein as a school, but I also saw Otterbein as the perfect fit for my self-serving, image-building campaign. These thoughts that I am relaying to you right now did not exist in this developed form back then, but they absolutely had influence in the back of my mind.

         Otterbein was a school where I could perfect the image that I wanted. It wasn’t a big party school, it had a solid Christian community, it had an honor’s program, and it had a baseball team that I was going to be a part of. On their own, these are great things; in fact, these are blessings. However, like most good things, they can be corrupted by using them for the wrong reasons and in my case, it was for selfish gain (i.e. gaining popularity and that elusive cherry on top, a girlfriend).

         Yet, this only covers my plans for the social aspect of college. What about my future? What did I want to be when I grew up? That little kid who played sports to fit in desperately wanted to grow up to be a professional baseball player (there aren’t many boys who don’t have the desire to be a professional athlete during some point of their childhood). Like most boys, I eventually realized this wasn’t going to be a reality and for most of high school I didn’t exactly know what profession interested me (I remember thinking about marketing and finance, but those thoughts waned). When I signed up to take the SAT and ACT, I had to mark college majors that intrigued me. I recall seeing “Sport Management” as one of the options; it could have said anything after sport and I would’ve marked it with a check. So, I started to look into what fields one could go into with a sport management degree, until one clicked – sports agency. I had seen Jerry Maguire and heard the names Drew Rosenhouse and Scott Boras on Sportscenter and I figured that it was the next best thing to being a professional athlete. Thus, I looked for schools with a solid sport management program and after getting my bachelor's, I planned on getting my law degree.

SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!

         I never stopped to ask myself why I wanted to do this, or at least ask myself, how can I serve God as a sports agent? This should have be an essential question for one who wanted to be known as a strong Christian. It’s not that one can’t honor God as a sports agent, but I simply never had that thought. Once again, I had the completely wrong perspective on the blessings and opportunities that were given to me, but in grace, God seemed to lift blinders that were keeping me from seeing the entire picture.

A Semester to Remember – Flipping Upside-Down

             As with most college students, orientation week was my first exposure to campus life. It was a hotbed to meet girls and an effective network to make friends. To make matters easier, I felt like I had a wingman – my roommate who I went to high school with. Despite meetings and paperwork, I remember the week being a blast. I felt confident as I began my classes and was eager to start baseball. I sort of have a lot of scrambled thoughts about my time at Otterbein, so it has taken me a while to try to come up with a way to tell you about it. However, I suppose the best way to do it would be to break it down into my impressions of baseball, class, and social life, and then explain how I came to feel the need to transfer.

             

My friend and fellow pitcher, Dustin and me

One of the things that I was anxious about with baseball was fitting in with the team (me concerned about fitting in? shocker). I thought that all college athletes did in their spare time was binge drink; I was naïve. When fall ball began, I found out just how much time a college sport takes up. I had never gone through anything so physically demanding – whether it was the amount of throwing we did or our workouts. It was tremendously difficult for me, but I could see myself improving, which made it worth it.  Moreover, my doubts about fitting in were shattered; I ended up loving the guys on the baseball team. Sure, they expected freshmen to work hard, but once you showed that you were willing to do that, you were accepted into the brotherhood. I even made friends who were strong Christians and they were both upperclassman, yet they never treated me with condescension. This was the first time that I had been a part of a team whose players were so tightly knit and who all bought into working extremely hard.

            As far as classes went, they weren’t as rigorous as I expected them to be. Granted, they were all freshman-level intros or gen-ed classes, but I didn’t have that tough of a time getting A’s. Also differing from my expectations was my sport management class. Not that there cannot be arduous aspects of a sport management degree, but when I was in my intro to sport management class, I saw that I wasn’t challenging myself academically. As a matter of fact, I realized that I had been doing that for a long time. I sort of alluded to this in my last post; namely, how I tried decently hard to get good grades, but I didn’t work hard to actually learn. This realization began the process of changing my outlook toward school and how I absorbed information. Thus, I questioned if being a sports agent was what I really wanted to do; I thought about trying broadcasting, or maybe something completely different…

            We come to the social aspect of my time at Otterbein. When I think about it now, I remember nothing negative about this, but I know I felt differently at the time. First of all, I made some solid friends in my dorm hall and my roommate and I were close. Secondly, I got plugged into OCF (Otterbein Christian Fellowship), which was a Campus Crusade ministry that met on Thursday’s. Growing up in a small church, I never had that many Christian friends, so this was new and exciting for me. Thirdly, I had guys from baseball and we even had a small Bible study. The experience of being at a new school, with its athletics, classes, organizations, and people naturally gave me new perspectives. I mentioned that one of these was how seriously I took my education. Another one ended up being how seriously I took my faith. For a long time, I strived to give the impression that I was a knowledgeable Christian, whose actions by and large lined up with his beliefs. Just like I wasn’t challenging myself academically, I realized I wasn’t challenging myself spiritually. I wasn’t engaging what was being taught at church. Neither was I engaging the daily devotional or the chapter of the Bible I read each day. I collected knowledge. I treated these as tasks on a to-do list. It wasn’t until I came to Otterbein that I found friends who dared me to read the Bible and truly take it seriously. Additionally, they asked, instead of being satisfied with the status quo, what if you genuinely tried to grow or improve in your walk with God?

Central Ohio Campus Crusade Fall Retreat 2011 (I'm Ricky Vaughn)

            I accepted the challenge and with it yet another new perspective came. My love of God had previously lacked any sort of passion/joy. I suppose Christians can have dry spells or speed bumps, but this was a true re-commitment. Now that I was willing to challenge myself academically and spiritually, I came to examine my future plans. I asked that question that every Christian should ask him/herself – how can I serve God in what I want to do? To push it further, how does God want me to serve him? These are rather big questions to deal with and I wrestled with them for several weeks. I came to feel called to pursue full-time church ministry. I interpreted circumstances at my home church as well as the gifts (e.g. personality traits and mental aptitude) that I believed I had been blessed with as God pointing me toward that direction.

            This new direction (band name, I called it first) caused me to ask even more questions – primarily, was Otterbein the right place for me to be trained for full-time church ministry? Yeah, I struggled with this one too, but if I am honest with myself, I never really gave staying at Otterbein a chance. As soon as I encountered this question, I automatically assumed that the answer was “no.” I began to nitpick at certain qualities of the school. I took things like occasionally eating meals alone and not liking a certain message/song at OCF as indications that Otterbein wasn’t the place for me. I had people who really wanted me to stay and tried to show me how I can still grow as a Christian leader at Otterbein. Even though I prayed over this decision, in reality I had made up my mind without truly hearing out both sides. For the question at hand, a negative answer was probably the logical one. However, I wish that I had made the decision in a different way. I wish that I weighed the relationships I had made at the school in such a short period of time and saw how truly special they were. I even wish that I considered staying another semester to make a better-informed decision.

            I don’t want you to feel sorry for me – I know that these are good problems to have. This is me telling my story and you can criticize all that you want. That’s a precursor to say that I spent many a night longing over the fact that I chose to leave Otterbein and desperately wished that I never had or at least that I could find something else like it. But you can’t continually focus on the past. I had to play the cards that I had been dealt; a hand that many people would love to have. I had to learn from my mistakes and trust that God was still in control, even if I didn’t understand what he was trying to do.

            Of course, I didn’t have any of these feelings in December of 2011. I was confident in my decision. After a series of heartfelt goodbyes, I chose to transfer to Cedarville University and I was anxious to get started. I planned on majoring in pastoral studies and playing on their baseball team. I made sweeping declarations going into the new school. Perhaps my fervor was admirable, but I probably bit off more than I could chew. I think that God helped me grow in wisdom through a humbling process that began in 2012.

            That is where I will begin my next post: 2012, a taxing and peculiar year for me. That year included my (short) time at Cedarville, other activities I did during that spring semester, and another new school. Once again, everything that I describe to you is the best that I remember it and it is based on how I currently see the events. If you would like to know more or have any questions about what I’ve wrote so far, feel free to ask! If you have made it this far, thanks for reading! God bless.

A Note to My Friends at Otterbein

            When I left Otterbein, I promised to stay in touch with many people. Some I did for a little while, but even those contacts faded after some time. As time goes on, the connection becomes less relevant or at least becomes less fresh in one’s mind. Things come up, days go by and it thus grows easier to not send that text or Facebook message. I never visited in part because I was embarrassed of the decision I had made, especially after what happened at Cedarville and in part because it was too painful for me to rehash those memories. These were weak excuses. I know the people at Otterbein would have embraced me, rather than hold my feet to the fire - something that was proven when I went to see the baseball team play at Baldwin Wallace. I feel awful for not making more of an effort – it was cowardly and I am sorry. I cherish the memories that I have of Otterbein; whether it was karaoke at Applebee’s, fall retreat, hanging out in Mayne Hall, or sweating through a circuit workout. Thank you to each person that made my time there what it was. I am forever better off because of you.