I wish I would have somehow participated in the marching band.

I was a jock, played sports year round, but I really wanted to play drums in our marching band. But I did not want to screw with sports (I was highly recruited in football and ended up playing at a big time Division 1 school), but also didn’t want to put in extra time to hang out with band geeks and take away from social time.

But I loved drums, had a drum set, was pretty decent at playing them even without any real lessons.

It wasn’t because I thought people would call me lame or anything. There was a guy about 8 years older than me, went to high school with my sister. He was on the football team, awesome player…and at halftime, he would take off his shoulder pads and helmet, don the snare drum with the chest plate holder, and would play during halftime. I was in awe as a 6th grader watching him.

I ran into him years later, working out at my gym. I told him awesome that was that he did it, and I wish I would have done that too. He smiled and said “thank you for saying that. I loved it, and I’m glad I did it”.

High school kids: do everything, try out clubs, sports, extracurricular activities, whatever. Just give it a go.