ACT

Most athletes that want to play sports in college seem to always focus on their skill level and if they are good enough to make a team. They worry about the facilities, coaches, teammates, ranking, and their playing time. Athletes seem to be blind to the fact, sometimes, that their grades actually matter too. In order to get into college there are some requirements you must meet, no matter how good you are at sports. One of the things that might be necessary is a high ACT score. 

There are many opportunities students have to take the ACT throughout junior and senior year. There is a test date almost every month, or every other month. A student can take the ACT up to as many times as they want, but of course it is going to cost you a lot of money. This is why it is better to just do well on your first or second time taking it.

As it is important to do well on this test, because it will ultimately affect the college you choose, there are many ways you can prepare yourself. The people in charge of the ACT provide students with the option to order a book, or take online practice tests. This will help students see what they need help on and give them an idea of what the test will be like.

Preparing for the ACT can be extremely stressful, and athletes might not always have the time to prepare. This is why many students, like myself, study lightly for the first test to see what they need to work on. If my scores for the math section are low, while the science scores are high, I then know that I need to work on math a lot more than science. This will take some stress of you for the first time, but later on you will really need to dig in if you don't do well the first time. 

Always remember that it is not always about if you are physically fit for the sports team at your college, but your grades need to be in tact as well. Some people even have to commit to other places simply because their grades weren't good enough for the college's criteria. School is very important and most athletes in college aren’t going to become professionals. You are going to college to get an education and it just so happens you get to play the sport you love as well. Unless you are seriously focused on going pro, focus on the academics.

Volleyball Drills

Coming up with drills to do in practices is sometimes hard because they have to involve all positions, be productive, and be fun at the same time. Some of my favorite drills are Pra-ja, Columbia, George, Baseball, WIN, and Split Court. All of these drills are fun, productive, and everyone gets a lot of touches.

Pra-ja is a game I learned at HP this year. It is definitely my favorite drill because it involves a lot of quick thinking and communication between you and your partner. Pra-ja is a 2 on 2 game with 2 balls being played at the same time. You and your partner are allowed 3 touches on each ball like normal but you can let the ball bounce in between each contact. In order to get each ball in play one partner from each side will serve one ball to the player on the other side who is not serving. After each ball is in play you play normally but you can let the ball bounce once in between each contact. If one team wins both points they stay and the other team waves through, but if both teams win one point they are both off and two new teams come on. I like this drill because it tests how well you can communicate with your teammate and it trains you to look across the net to tell your partner where he/she should attack the ball to. A hint for this drill is to never tip short. Tipping in the drill is an easy pass for the other team because the short tip will bounce up directly to a player on the other side.

Columbia is another awesome drill. Columbia is run with 4-6 players on each side of the net. The scoring and rules of a normal game apply, the only thing that is different is that every player rotates when your team attacks the ball over the net. I like this drill because you get to experience playing every position. George is similar to Columbia with 4-6 players and regular rules/scoring applies, but if you make a mistake you are out and the next person in line on your team replaces you. I like this drill because it puts pressure on you to not make a mistake. Volleyball is a game of mistakes, every point is caused by a mistake. So everyone is going to make mistakes at some point in a game but it is the team who makes the least mistakes that will come out on top. When you are playing the game George it really makes you focus on the position you are playing because if you want to stay on the court you can’t make a mistake.

These are just some of my favorite drills I have played. I hope this helps if you are looking for fun drills for a practice :) 

Athletes And Their Stories

Many athletes have a story for why they have accomplished so much or so little in their life time. This isn't just true for athletes, but for anyone in the world. From what I see is that there are many professional athletes that have came from a sad and hard background. These athletes make it far in their career, not only in their sporting career but in their family life too. They become a person that is strong, hard working and a more loving kind of person.

Football and basketball are some of the sports that you will find athletes with stories. Now a lot of this could do from where they are from or what they have done in their past. These athletes are the ones that have lost someone special in their life, a parent walked out when they were little, abusive home life, drug involvement growing up, etc. This has nothing to do with race or discrimination, it has everything to do with where they are from, grown up and raised.

I have so much respect for athletes with stories like these. It is amazing to me how hard they have worked to be where they are.  It shows and proves that you can do anything no matter how difficult things are in your life. A lot of these athletes will go and speak to young athletes. They are considered motivational speakers to kids that come from backgrounds like them, have a bad attitude, or just think they are better than everyone else. Their stories can reach out and hit young athletes in many different ways. I come from a very good background and these people make me want to be better in many different ways. They make me want to work harder at a sport, whether that is in practice, during a game or the off season. They make me want to be a better and bigger person in life. I start to see how good I have it compared to a lot of other athletes. If I see that they can make it as far and succeed that well, then I don't have any excuse to not do the same.

I encourage you to go listen to a motivational speaker and be open minded with it. Sometimes people cant take them serious, because they are to stuck up with their own life. I guarantee you will walk out of that room and feel like a different person. If you are the type of person that didn't set goals in life, you will after hearing an athlete talk. You will want to change your ways in your life.

Colorado Springs

I was counting down to the day we left for Colorado for a long time. Getting to play my favorite sport in my favorite state with my favorite people was something to look forward to. My dad and I flew out of Chicago and arrived in the Mile High City on a Thursday. We went to Colorado over thanksgiving break last year to ski and it was the best vacation I have been on so I was pumped when I heard we were going to be playing at Crossroads this club season. I had never been to Crossroads before this year, but I had heard nothing but good things about everyone’s experience there. Walking in to the convention center on Friday before we played I could see why everyone said this was their favorite tournament. Everywhere you looked it was either sweet volleyball clothing, everything you can think of that is Nike, every different food vendor, or courts. It was like a volleyball players dream in a big convention center.

            We went 2-1 the first day, which made us a second seed in our pool the next day. The second day we went 2-1 again but we were in a 3 way tie for first. We thought we might have had to play a challenge match but we ended up getting first because we had the highest winning percentage out of the other teams. We were pretty excited about that, because we were now in the gold bracket and had a shot at qualifying for nationals. After we were done playing on Saturday, some of my teammates wanted to go see some mountains in Vail because they had never seen them before. I decided to go with, even though I knew it was going to be hard seeing the mountains and not being able to ski. I am obsessed with skiing and being in Colorado and not going skiing is really hard let me tell you. It was still awesome driving around through the mountains, and afterwards we went to a pizza place that had been there for over 200 years!

On Sunday we played at 8 in the morning against a pretty solid team from Florida I think. We won the first game, and then lost the second game. In the third set we fought hard and everyone really wanted to win but we just had a few too many mistakes and some bad calls. We lost 12-15. Losing sucks and I don’t think there is a worse feeling. It was not the way we wanted to end that tournament but I think we became more of a team experiencing that tough loss. We realized how much we all wanted it and the next chance we had to qualify we were going to take it.

Pain

The major side effect of playing a sport is the pain you can receive. Whether it is growing pain, injury pain, or being sore from constantly playing. There is good pain and bad pain. Injury pain is an example of bad pain that you do not want to have, and growing pain and your muscles being sore are good pain. Which pain would you rather have, pain that means you are working hard and that you are becoming stronger, or pain that is constantly hurting and you have to work your strength back up for that muscle? I think every single person would agree with the hard working pain; soreness.

Sore muscle pain feels like your muscles are so tight and that you need to stretch them all day long. If you have worked really hard, lifting, doing agilities, playing a sport you are bound to be sore. Now the amount of soreness relies on how hard you pushed yourself, or how long you have been doing a specific workout. Usually the soreness in your muscles are worse when you have participated in a certain activity for awhile. The is because your muscles are not use to that activity, so they become sore but this is a great sign, because you know your muscles are working and becoming strong. You know you are sore and you worked extremely hard when you squat to sit on the toilet and you just fall on it, because it hurts to go in the squatting position. Even though you have pain for five to six days, it is the type of pain you are proud of and don't mind.

Injury pain absolutely sucks, because it hurts like a mother trucker and you lose all the strength in that muscle, so you have to rebuild up that strength. This take time and you have to go through pain while strengthening. Some people come back stronger than before if they work hard and do what their therapist tell them to do. There are a lot of negative things that come out of an injury. You have to sit out of a sport you love and some confidence in that muscle is lost. The key is to keep working hard and to not worry about injuries and it wont happen to you.

Environment

The environment that athletes play in can change the way they perform. All tournaments have different environments to play in. Qualifiers are large with thousands of people at them. These tournaments consist of college coaches everywhere, up to 100 courts, family members surrounding the court. These tournaments are so official it makes it seem like us athletes are very important. These tournaments I feel like pump up the athlete/athletes to perform well and do the best they can. Where some tournaments like into tournaments or just in a gym doesn't pump up the athlete as much. In these tournaments they don't receive a bag tag or a tag to put around their neck to be able to get in the tournament. These you don't stay at hotels and hangout with your team the hole weekend. They are fun, but the competition isn't the same like it would be at a qualifying tournament. These teams at qualifiers are elite players and are going to big colleges to do big things and then at these smaller tournaments the players just aren't the same. Everything is so much slower, but it is good to work on some more complicated offense and to better your ball control.

I also think that the qualifiers environment helps make the player perform better, because colleges are there to watch and decide which player could fit their school the best. This makes a kid want to perform and do really well, because they might not ever get the same opportunity again. These athletes want to play college volleyball, so being treated so official in these tournaments make them think they are already at that level. I love how there are so many people in the convention center and college coaches are everywhere is pretty freaking cool to me. I like how loud I have to talk to have my hitters hear me. When the tournament is over and my voice is gone, is when I know I worked really hard at that tournament. The excitement of every play is better and more fun than what I have ever experienced. These tournaments make volleyball so much fun and one of the major reasons why I love the sport so much.

Adrenaline

I play for Adrenaline Volleyball Academy out of Robins, IA. I used to play for Six Pack out of Cedar Falls, IA. I love both clubs and have learned a lot about volleyball through both clubs. I have met amazing people and most of these people will be in my life for a long time. I consider my teammates my best friends.

Playing competitive club volleyball insists of an eager to get better and be the best player in the gym. There has to be goals for the team and for yourself. Just going to practice and going through the motions is not going to cut it. When playing volleyball you have to have an urge to win and play as hard as you can. You should feel adrenaline run through your body. Many times before I play I am tired and want to take a nap. When the match starts I don't feel that way anymore. I am more excited and wanting to play as hard as I can.

I would consider my sport friends my closest friends and best friends. They are with me majority of the year and will always have my back. I am extremely thankful for the friends I have made through playing sports. These people will be in my life for ever and ever. Playing a sport with people you love makes it forty times more fun and competitive.

I have learned a lot about how to play volleyball these past five years. I have been with a total of 4 clubs, but where I learned A LOT about volleyball was Six Pack. I've had all amazing coaches. Doug Palmer has taught me a lot of the fundamentals and have made me have the mindset that I have right now. I am truly thankful for him and all he has done for me. My next coach was Marty Smith. He is and was by far the best coach I have ever had. He has made me a tough player physically and mentally. He has taught me that everything you do in life and on the court, you can do better at. I used to be the player where I needed compliments and needed to be told that I was doing good, but after I had Marty as a coach I no longer thought that. He has taught me where I need to be to succeed at a high level. The next coach is Austin Filer. I love Austin, he gives me so much freedom to work on the court. He knows I will get the job done and I have been coached so good in the past that I can coach myself after a mistake, but Austin will tell me and put me in my place if he thinks I am wrong. Austin has done so much for me to get to college. I love that part of him, because I know he believes in me that I can go somewhere big some day. Austin's coaching style is a lot different than what I am used to. He is much calmer than Marty or Doug and I like it. I appreciate having different kinds of coaching styles, because it gets me ready for college.

Dream Big (534)

I've always had a dream to play a sport in college. Watching my sister go off to college doing so, their friends, my cousins doing so has always made me dream of accomplishing that too. I never knew what sport I wanted to play whether that was volleyball, basketball or softball. I have done a lot of thinking and playing these sports throughout the year and one day I finally knew what sport I wanted. Both of my sisters went to college for basketball and I thought that is what I would want to do too, but I want to play volleyball. If you talk to a little kid and ask them what their dreams are, they say crazy things like "I want to be super man. I am going to play NFL right out of high school. I want to have super powers." Now some of these dreams they mention can be done, but they have such a beautiful imagination and want to do something great in their life. When I speak to kids that talk like this make me want to accomplish my dreams so these kids know its possible to do.

When you get to a point in your life where these dreams are becoming reality, it doesn't seem real that you have made it this far. Doing something you love and having the determination to make your dreams come true is an awesome feeling to have. People who make it big and a little kid got a chance to watch them do so, looks up to them and believes they can make it happen too. I never really knew I wanted to play volleyball in college until I was 14. My person I looked up too and knew I could accomplish anything I set my mind too was Kristin Haun. She went to Kennedy High School and played volleyball, softball and basketball. She LOVED softball, but decided to play volleyball in college. She became an all American libero at Iowa State and now plays over seas. I had the chance to watch her succeeded these huge accomplishments and that's when I knew I could do the same. As I started high school I knew I wanted to play volleyball, but didn't know exactly what level I wanted to play at in college. I never thought I could succeed at the level I want to if I went division one, but as I am getting closer to this decision I believe I can, and watching Kristin do it makes me think I can even more.

One thing I have always wanted is some little girl or boy looking up to me and believing they can accomplish anything like I looked up to Kristin. Dreams are always a good thing to have, but making them come true takes a lot of hard work and determination and many kids don't understand that. Every kid needs to know how important it is to have dreams, but most importantly that you can make it happen if you put your mind to it. I have noticed it helps every kid to watch someone that they closely know accomplish theirs to want to make their dream happen.