Alana Shields
Being supportive, to Alana, is lifting your teammates up when they are down, and cheering someone on and celebrating them when they succeed. Being supportive means encouraging your friends to follow their dreams, or to motivate them when they are struggling. “Supportive” is a word Alana, herself, and her closest friends would use to describe her.
Alana Shields is a sophomore at Morro Bay High, and a team captain on her varsity volleyball team. Volleyball is an incredibly important aspect of her life, as it is where she gets joy, makes new friends, and she can bond with her closest friends. When asked what Alana loves about the sport, she responded, “It’s a team sport, it really brings me together with everyone, and so I get to make new friends and just the energy it brings hypes me up and makes me happy.”
During the fall, she plays on her school’s indoor volleyball team, making varsity her freshman year. As well as indoor with the school, she plays with her club team, Flight Academy with three of her close friends. Volleyball comes with many friends, and chances to get closer to them. One of Alana’s closest friends, Keo Cross, comments, “Volleyball has just been an important part of our lives, it’s really made us become closer.”
Volleyball on its own can be a very difficult sport to master, but practicing during COVID makes it all that much harder. During her 7th grade year, Alana was unable to play volleyball with her middle school, due to most of the indoor sports and activities being shut down. However, she did get a chance to play club volleyball. “We had to play with masks on, and in a very hot convention center, with everyone there playing, and so it was really tiring,” she comments about the experience. Overall, the pandemic may have been a large obstacle, but it was an obstacle that Alana and her friends overcame together.
While volleyball has some lessons to learn that can be applied to day-to-day life, it is much more common the other way around. One important piece of advice Alana has learned that can be applied to all aspects of life is, “always being you and not caring what other people think”. Alana says that she lives by this motto, and that it makes her life more fun and enjoyable.
Not only is Alana described as supportive, she has all the qualities that make for an amazing volleyball teammate and player. Energetic, loyal, funny, and kind have also been used to describe her. While volleyball may seem like a small part of her life, it has a huge impact on her personality, social circle, and her life in general.
