Senior Tabitha Vanderhorst (right) and Julian Baker, assistant director of Pepperdine Campus Recreation (second from right), pose with one of the Spring 2026 intramural basketball team. Vanderhorst has participated in intramural basketball since her freshman year. Photo courtesy of Tabitha Vanderhorst
There is a silent grief that follows after realizing the sport someone loved for years may never become their career. The hanging of cleats, folding of a jersey one last time and getting rid of equipment kills the childhood dream that was built over the course of a decade.
Before the expectations and pressure to perform, there was a child playing a sport because they loved it: dribbling a basketball up and down the driveway, spiking a volleyball in the backyard or kicking around a soccer ball at the park with no worries in the world.
“Never give up because if you are truly passionate about something, you can always take a break,” junior Keira Leshinskie said. “It will always come back to you, and you will find your way back to that passion as well.”
Julian Baker, assistant director of Campus Recreation, said the transition from competitive sports is challenging when athletics become intertwined with one’s identity.
“Although it’s not pertinent for them to wrap up their entire identity in one thing, or something like a sport, it doesn’t mean that it’s still not a very important part of who we are,” Baker said. “For that to come to a complete stop after high school can be very difficult.”
For students settling into their next chapter of life without sports, Baker said recreational sports gives them an outlet to preserve the connection. As life changes, so do their reasons for playing sports.
“If you allow that to take root in the different phases of our life, then you can continue to enjoy sports for many years, not just when you’re done playing high school ball,” Baker said.
A Passion Worth Keeping
Leshinskie made an effort to ensure she never lost her passion in the first place.
The junior spent 11 years playing volleyball before switching to cross country and track halfway through high school. By the time she graduated, Leshinskie knew she did not want to commit to college for athletics but also knew she was not ready to leave sports behind.
“Going into college, I knew I didn’t want to go through the recruitment process or try to get a scholarship for any of those, I really wanted to focus on my academics,” Leshinskie said. “But thankfully at Pepperdine, I found there were so many opportunities for me to still stay involved with the sports I had loved and had grown up playing.”
Now, Leshinskie participates in intramural volleyball, competes with the Club Beach Volleyball team and serves as president of the running club. However, her connection to Pepperdine’s Campus Recreation dates back to before she ever stepped foot on campus.
“I met Julian, the Campus Recreation director, early on before my freshman year of college because I interviewed for a job position refereeing intramural volleyball games,” Leshinskie said. “Then, he got me hooked on the whole intramural thing, so I made my own intramural volleyball team.”
Junior Keira Leshinskie (middle) bumps a volleyball at the Marie Canyon Sand Volleyball Courts in October 2024. Growing up, Leshinskie played volleyball for 11 years. Photo courtesy of Keira Leshinskie
Sports still define Leshinskie’s college experience, but not at the cost of anything else. Better yet, sports function as a healthy outlet from all the other demands of college.
“Playing any sport can be a huge stress relief — it can take your mind off of school, especially when I am trying very hard in the academic aspect of my Pepperdine career, studying, doing homework and keeping all that balanced,” Leshinskie said.
As president of the Pepperdine Running Club, Leshinskie said she watches new students join every semester with different motives. While some spent years racing in high school and missed the runner’s high, others never considered themselves runners until they joined.
“We definitely see a lot of returning runners, so people who ran in high school or have been running as a hobby and want to continue that,” Leshinskie said. “But we also have a lot of students who have literally never ran in their life and they just are hoping to make more friends or their roommate dragged them along.”
Junior Keira Leshinskie (second from left) poses with runners in Pepperdine Running Club ahead of the Chesebro Half Marathon in Agoura Hills in April 2025. Leshinskie serves as Running Club president. Photo courtesy of Keira Leshinskie
Baker said the most meaningful thing about sports is not the shared passion, but how athletes come together to participate for different purposes. For some, sports are about competing at the highest level or for the physcial enjoyment. For others, they offer an escape from life’s obstacles or a way to feel connected with a passed loved one.
“That’s why sports are important because it’s so versatile,” Baker said. “They are very dynamic. It’s a great way to learn life lessons and also in a very safe space.”
Whether students sign up to chase old passions or seek out new ones, Leshinskie said they are looking for a safe space to have a good time.
The Way Back
For graduate student Emma Monte, volleyball and soccer were the foundation of her early years. When it came time to choose a college, Monte knew pursuing collegiate athletics and academics would not sync up well.
“When I decided not to pursue sports in college because of my major and stuff — it wouldn’t really have aligned well — I knew that I still wanted to participate in them,” Monte said.
As one of the few students in her Nutritional Science major classes, Monte found that sports allowed her to connect with more people within her division that she never had the opportunity to meet in the classroom.
“It allows me to meet people that I won’t have overlapping classes with,” Monte said. “It’s allowed me to meet people like Julian and just get connections to a lot more people than I might have otherwise.”
Monte still welcomes the competitive spirit when playing a game or tournament, but without the unhealthy pressure that accompanies most athletes.
“There’s just so much less pressure and you’re playing with people that you know and might be in class with,” Monte said. “It’s a fun way to see those people in a different environment and then it’s also so much more relaxing and fun because there’s not high stakes.”
Stepping away from competitive athletics did not mean giving up on the sports Monte poured her whole life into — it allowed her to rekindle her love for them on her own terms.
“There is still so much room to find joy in things,” Monte said. “Building community in our life is about so much more than our career.”
Falling in Love Again
For senior Tabitha Vanderhorst, basketball had been part of her life since third grade. Competing on club teams, Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) leagues and playing all throughout high school led Vanderhorst to have the chance to continue her athletic career at the collegiate level. But, Vanderhorst chose Pepperdine to prioritize academics with the intention of still connecting with her sport.
“I thought I could go to a school that just has intramurals or that has a club team and play for them because I didn’t want it to be my entire life,” Vanderhorst said. “I wanted to be able to focus on my academics.”
Somewhere along the way full of practices and expectations, basketball became more like a chore than something fun to do.
“Toward the end of my basketball career, it wasn’t as much fun, and now I get to have fun with it,” Vanderhorst said. “It’s [intramurals] given me a nice reconnection to basketball.”
Vanderhorst said stepping away from the highly competitive nature of basketball helped her revisit why she loved playing in the first place.
“I learned a lot about how it is so important to find fun in the little things,” Vanderhorst said. “It’s so nice because intramural basketball is such low stakes, like it doesn’t matter if I win or lose at the end of the day, and it allows me to turn something that was so competitive and had so much pressure growing up into something that I can just enjoy for fun.”
Vanderhorst’s renewed relationship with basketball followed her outside of Pepperdine’s Malibu campus.
Through an internship during the summer of 2025, Vanderhorst found a familiar home in an unfamiliar city when she joined an adult recreational basketball league to meet people in Boston.
“I met so many friends that way,” Vanderhorst said. “It still gave me something to look forward to at the end of the day.”
Since being at Pepperdine, Vanderhorst has worked for Campus Recreation as a basketball referee during her first year, event staff member her junior year and is most recently beginning her senior year as an event staff supervisor.
Not only did Vanderhorst find her way back to the court, but she even decided to pick up more sport pastimes. She has played intramural basketball every year of college — including participating in a small recreational league during her sophomore year abroad in Argentina — and took part in volleyball and soccer for the first time last year.
Senior Tabitha Vanderhorst’s friends playing in a basketball game in Buenos Aires, Argentina during fall 2025. Vanderhorst spent the entirety of her sophomore year abroad through Pepperdine’s International Programs. Photo courtesy of Tabitha Vanderhorst
The Game Goes On
Looking into the future, none of these three athletes said they can imagine living a life without their sports.
Monte said she plans to continue playing soccer and volleyball throughout graduate school, with the possibility of exploring sports she never imagined herself participating in before.
“It has expanded my horizons to even more sports I’d be open and willing to try because they are kind of the same nature where it’s just for fun, to get to know people, build community and move your body,” Monte said.
For Leshinskie, sports will continue to be a way to stay healthy and connect with others — whether she is distance running or joining a volleyball league.
“I want to continue racing half marathons and marathons well into my adult life, and that is just such a great way to stay healthy,” Leshinskie said. “I definitely see myself staying weirdly competitive as like a 50-year-old adult in my adult recreational league.”
Vanderhorst said she hopes to continue her involvement in recreational leagues to exercise her passion and nurture her body.
“I do hope to continue playing in adult recreational leagues, just keeping my physique and athleticism and staying in shape,” Vanderhorst said.
Passions have a silent way of surviving. When they wait for times of pressure and expectations to subside, they will return on a random afternoon when someone ties up their shoes and picks up a ball to hear the familiar echo of their childhood.
“Loss in any form, whether it’s relationships or things we participate in, can be difficult,” Baker said. “So it [loss] changes how it looks, but the kind of excitement that you get still from just dribbling a ball or throwing a football with some friends.”
This story was copy edited by Lila Rendel.
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Contact Madison Chavez via email: madison.chavez@pepperdine.edu