Personal Narrative: How Volleyball Changed My Life

The past four years of my life have been full of positive and negative experiences that have changed the person I am and the life that I am trying to build for myself. The most significant experience in my life has been my involvement in volleyball. The sport of volleyball alone, to me, is a stress reliever. When stripped of the unfortunate politics of competitive high school sports and the undeniable drama between a team, it is a wonderful way for me to spend my time and have fun. However, the majority of my time playing volleyball in high school was terrible. It is difficult for me to express in words how I felt in practice every day or in my car on the way home after a league match. Every day in practice I would constantly ponder what the time was, or wish that I had the …show more content…
In the five years that I have been involved in the sport, I have only experienced degradation from this one particular coach who seemed to find pleasure in mentally abusing his players and humiliating them. Until recently, I had always convinced myself that I was useless and a waste if I wasn’t a division one commit. I constantly had to hold back my emotions and restrain myself from breaking down in front of the team or my coach because I felt so humiliated and demeaned. There were times when I built up just enough courage to stand up for my feelings, however I was immediately shot down and I went back to doubting myself and my worth. Every day was challenging in the fact that I gave one hundred percent of my effort into the volleyball program to receive this type of treatment. I was respected by all of my teammates and I was recognized as the hardest worker, the best teammate, and the most competitive in our team evaluations. I was named captain and I was a great leader that held large amounts of responsibility. Unfortunately, my coach rarely chose to see me as the type of player I actually