When you are an athlete you fall in love with the game, you fall in love with the way it is played, the way it works, and the atmosphere that you are in. I fell in love with my sport when I was 6 years old.

I lived for every practice, every camp, every lock-in. I let the game define who I was.

I grew up trying to perfect myself trying to get where I needed to be. I spent countless hours hitting a ball, handling a ball, trying to figure out which technique and which side would work for my serve. I spent endless hours going through jump training and going from camp to camp to get better to reach a goal. I had the desire not just to play but to get better and to be the best athlete that I could be.

Thank you to those coaches that truly love the sport, know what you are doing and show your team what it takes to get where they want to go.

Although with the good, there are the ones that are bad.

That’s where you come in. I guess you could say I was lucky because although some of my coaches weren't necessarily “the best,” I never had a coach kill something or make me feel as worthless as you did.

The coaches that were supposed to make things better when I made it to college, were the coaches that focused on who THEY wanted to play, who they NEEDED to be on the floor because their marriage, job, career, and outlook in the community depended on it. Better yet, I guess you could say they didn’t coach, they let their daughter coach for them. Like that was a good idea. These are the coaches that no matter how hard you work, or what your doctor’s orders are they will make your life a living hell. Why? Because they can.

I had made it through one of the worst injuries that an orthopedic surgeon had seen.

I had pushed myself my senior year to not only play for my team but to make it somewhere in college because I had to miss out on a year of playing in high school because I got hurt. I succeeded. I made it out. At least I thought I did...

When a passion dies, it is the most heartbreaking thing ever.

A desire to go practice, workout, handle a ball and even watch a game is gone. You no longer want tickets to watch a game because you can’t stand to watch it. You don’t want to go into the gym during your school's team games because you have to sit back and watch her destroy so many others passion the same way you did mine. I sat back and I watched not just you destroy a passion but I watched you destroy a game because you didn’t even understand the basics.

I watched you try to set up a college level sport in an elementary school offense/defense because you didn’t understand what the quick offense and defense drills are. I watched you destroy it all and the worst part, you thought that you were right, but yet when I asked you why we weren’t running a 5-1, you responded with, “What’s that?”

My high school team played better, was run better, worked harder and was more competitive than you will ever be. Now, I watch you destroy other girls. I watch you spend their fundraising on your own "needs," better yet, let’s call them "wants."

I watch you do the same thing to them that you did to me and my heart aches for them.

I went from playing high speed, competitive volleyball to being put back in three lines while sitting back and listening to you take notes from your child and the people that you picked and chose to like because you didn’t know what you were doing.

I pray for the sake of the girls now and the athletes today that you step down or get fired.

Because that would be the best thing for them. I pray that you can realize what you have done to so many other athletes aside from me and feel pity for it, but you won’t because that’s not the person you are. I pray that one day, eventually when all of your players quit or the school fires you that you look back and you realize that it isn’t all about you “posy”.

It isn’t all about whatever you say and whatever you think because when your team is stacked with amazing athletes and you still fail to win a game, that speaks for itself. So, thank you for killing my passion, I hope that someday karma hits you.

Sincerely,

The girl that loved the game…