From the hardwood of a basketball court, to a sun drenched football field, to the early, bitter cold mornings on the water for crew teams — pain and sports go hand in hand.

Anyone who has pounded out ladders for what seemed like an eternity, done wind sprints up and down the field until their lungs burned like the fires of hell or gotten up everyday at the butt-crack of dawn, like me, to row and push themselves to the brink of exhaustion — know what I’m talking about.

Athletes at Sacramento State, if they even want to have a prayer against powerhouse programs like Stanford or Cal, have to work longer, harder and deal with more mental and physical stress just to stay in the game.

Major sports schools have a stable of athletes, top talent from around the country, competing at each position in every sport. Hornets’, many with good talent, tend to come to Sac State in hopes of getting some playing time on teams nowhere near as deep.

Head football coach Steve Mooshagian said his coaches recruited long and hard this season to establish competition at every position, because when guys feel their job is on the line they push harder.

The only way the Hornets’ can compete is to go all out every second of every practice and every game.

For basketball players, this means becoming a gym rat. Taking those extra 50 free throws after coaches and teammates have gone home. Working on the jumper or the new post move until it becomes second nature. Watching tape of future and recent opponents to find strengths and weaknesses until their eyes are bloodshot.

Football players have to hit the weights harder than they ever thought possible.

Run every drill as if their lives depended on it. Quarterbacks need to stay and throw the extra passes and receivers need to stay and catch them to try and develop Peyton Manning- Marvin Harrison-like timing. Watching tape needs to take the place of watching “The Real World-Road Rules Challenge.”

In the sport of rowing, crew members must get up and out of bed when the sun hasn’t even thought of coming up over the horizon. In the pitch black cold, the athletes need to focus solely on every stroke when they get on the water.

How their night went, what’s going on with their significant other and even homework can’t enter their minds if getting faster is what they want to accomplish. A dedication to pain must be developed.

My coach Sam Sweitzer said you have to learn to go after the pain and eat lactic acid for breakfast.

On game day is when all the hard work should pay off. A basketball player should relish that he or she has taken hundreds more jumpers this week than the opponent. All of those balls clanging off the iron in practice should help a player find the bottom of the net in the all-important conference or road games.

The gallons of sweat football players leak out under the burning sun in practice should help the Hornet men pour out whatever is needed next season to improve on their disappointing 2-9 record from last year. Running sprints until they drop in full pads should help a little too.

For rowers, all of the dreaded hours logged on the land rowing machine (torture device) called the ergometer, all the mornings spent in the cold pulling on an oar, doing squats and running 150 flights of stairs might translate into one important thing — speed.

The agony, sacrifice and long hours are completed in hopes of avoiding the one thing that hurts most. Losing.