I started playing volleyball in seventh grade and started club volleyball when I was 14. I played at a club out of Plain City called Elite Volleyball Training Center. There was no particular reason I chose this club, I guess it was the first one that popped up in my moms search for “volleyball clubs near me.” I tried out for the 14u team and made the top team. When I made the team I was absolutely petrified. I did not know a single girl on the team and they all had been playing with each other for years. In this time of my life, I struggled a lot with friends. I really did not have any at school.
When I started going to practice, I was so scared. I kept to myself and did not know what to do. Slowly I started talking to a few girls, and after the first tournament I had completely clicked with them. They quickly became my best and only friends. I was not very good at volleyball that year, but I fell in love with it because of the people.
The next year of club I made a different team, still at Elite, but on a new team. I had a great year, making new friendships and growing stronger ones with old friends.
Then my 16s year happened. The director of my club was my coach and he believed the best way of coaching was to break you mentally so you can become mentally tough. That year was the worst year of my life. My coach had broken me completely. I could not play volleyball on his team without shaking in fear of what he might say to me. I started to hate playing volleyball so much but one thing kept me going: my teammates.
I had to make a decision my senior year what I wanted to do with my club career. I knew for my own mental health I needed to go to a new club but I was in an internal crisis because I could not leave my best friends at Elite. I had to choose the path of a new club and it hurt so bad leaving them. Those girls got me through very hard times and now I was leaving them.
I went into my 18s season, again with no friends. I ended up quickly making more friends at my new club and having a great season.
I had my last club practice recently and have had a lot of time to think and reflect on my club career. Playing club has allowed me to make the realization that surrounding yourself with good people can help you block any negativity from others. Positivity and happiness is more powerful and strong than negativity. Playing a club sport has allowed me to learn about new people from different places that I would not have met without it. Those people helped bring out the best in me and allowed me to find myself in an environment that I loved: a volleyball gym. Even though sometimes I dreaded going to practice, I would not change a thing in my volleyball career. I am continuing my athletic career at Hillsdale College, where I am beyond excited to meet new people who will help me continue to be in awe of how good people in the volleyball world truly are.
I began competitive cheerleading in kindergarten, which was well before I was ever involved with school cheerleading. Competitive cheerleading is considered under the “club” category of sports. I started competitive cheerleading at Step One Allstars (S1) in 2015, but I had previously done rec-cheer at Buckeye Cheer Elite (BCE).
In the beginning, the choice of joining cheerleading was not up to me. One of my cousins, who is much older than me, was one of the top athletes at S1. After lots of persuasion from my cousin, my mom signed me up for my first year of competitive cheer.
As I got older, I grew up with S1. A lot of the athletes there were from many different areas in Ohio and I got to meet people who did not grow up the same as me. The lessons I learned at S1 molded my perspective on the world I live in today. Of course, I learned how to be a team player, but I also learned respect and responsibility. One of the most important things I learned through competitive cheerleading is leadership. I was put on one of the older teams as a younger athlete, and at first I was extremely intimidated. I was a middle schooler who would be attending The Cheerleading Worlds. I believe that season is when cheer turned from a social thing, to a more intense and serious thing. However, I never lost the social aspect of cheerleading that I had built up over the last seven years. After that season was over, I spent one more season at S1 before making the switch to Cheer Athletics (CA). Obviously, leaving my childhood gym was not an easy choice to make, but it was one that would help me grow. I brought all my knowledge of how to be a good athlete and teammate to CA with hopes of competing at a new level. At Cheer Athletics, the bar was raised to new heights that I had never encountered. Currently, at CA I have cheered for three seasons all on extremely competitive teams. Now as my senior year is coming to a close, I feel the reality that my time in cheerleading is almost over.
My high school cheerleading career has been over for a few months now, but honestly high school cheer has never truly “left.” Although I am not under the lights on a Friday night, I still see my teammates in the hallways and attend sporting events. Plus, I get to hear stand up and cheer every Friday over the school speakers — still puts a smile on my face. When I stood in front of my school cheer team for the last time at the end of the season banquet, I remember feeling a sense of pride along with the sadness of leaving them. I knew that this was the beginning of the end.
Now that I am graduating, I have to face the reality of leaving my teammates from CA and UAHS. As someone who had the opportunity to be involved in cheer at both the high school and club level, I believe my experience with this chapter closing has been very emotional. Leaving this huge part of my life behind feels like a knife to my heart. Thank you to everyone who has been involved in my journey, I will cherish the memories I made for the years to come.
