Everyone has their own unique experience while playing high school sports. Some love it, some hate it, and people have feelings everywhere in between. And I honestly do not know how I got so lucky because I could not have loved my high school volleyball program anymore.

To My Coaches:

Thank you for always pushing me so hard. All three of you had such different coaching styles that complemented each other so well.

Thank you for always expecting so much of us. You always made sure that we knew what we needed to do to get better and you always made yourselves available to us. You saw potential in us that we didn’t always see in ourselves. You believed in us and made us believe that we were capable of anything we set our minds to.

Thank you for building a family around our program. You taught us to look after each other on and off the court. You encouraged team bonding and hosted film breakfasts. You always knew that building team chemistry was everything and that the closer we got, the better we would play together, and you could not have been more right.

Thank you for making me a confident player and for teaching me so many life lessons. It stuns me when I look back on my four years playing high school volleyball and realize how much I have changed. You made me such a better player mentally and physically by challenging me, yet always assured me that I could make that play. You made me truly believe in myself and my ability to do anything I set my mind to, which is something I struggled with for some time. You have also made me such a better person off the court. You have taught me to always put others before myself, to always look out for your family, and to have goals and chase them with resilience.

Your impact on my life has been monumental and I will be forever grateful.

To My Teammates:

I couldn’t thank you enough for anything and everything you have done for me on and off the court. You have been some of my best friends and I will always be thankful that volleyball brought me to all of you. Through all of the up-backs and wall touches, there is no one else I would rather have done it with.

I miss the gym crank sessions, the hand game, the pep talks, sitting in the training room with my best friends talking for hours. I miss the sweat, the love, and the tears. I miss the intensity, the competitiveness, and the constant laughs. I miss all of it.

I love how competitive it was and how much we expected of each other. We were all so different with such different personalities, from different friend groups, but we were somehow inseparable. Every single year I would look forward to August, when the preseason started, knowing that I was about to have the time of my life for the next three months with my best friends.

I love how hard we worked and how much it meant to all of us. You are all such wonderful people and you have certainly rubbed off on me in numerous ways. Spending four years around you amazing people has certainly made me a better person.

And even though many of us have gone our separate ways on to bigger and better things, I cannot help but look back and smile on all of the amazing times we've had.