In middle school, I made the switch from being a lifelong soccer player to a brand new volleyball player. I loved volleyball right from the start, even though I was terrible when I started playing. By the end of the school and club season that year, I was pretty good for having only started a few months before. I felt confident about making the transition from middle school volleyball to the high school competition. Then the varsity coach approached my mom and told her how I would get varsity playing time the following fall. Time after time when I would see the varsity coach, he would tell me about me getting a good amount of time on the varsity team. I didn’t know any better, so I believed him.

Tryouts didn’t scare me. I wasn’t worried about not making the team considering what the varsity coach had been telling me for the past six months. After tryouts, I found out I would be practicing with JV, but would be sitting up on the varsity bench. I was fine with that. We had a bunch of more experienced girls ahead of me. Sure, I was disappointed that my coach had lied to me and my mom. I was annoyed that my coach wasn’t putting the best players on the court, but was letting politics rule the lineups.

The next year, I was no longer fine with not playing varsity. The politics and favoritism was out of hand. Only playing upperclassmen because they are upperclassmen is not fair. At this point, I was starting to question whether or not I'd made the right choice to switch from soccer to volleyball. I was starting to lose the passion for the sport I fell in love with during the first practice. all due to a toxic coach.

After sophomore season, I did a lot of thinking. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue my volleyball career. I didn’t know if I could be happy playing for a coach like mine. But I wasn’t about to let some coach steal my passion for the game. So I persevered, took nothing he said to heart, and played my game.

Now that I’m in college, and have the best coach I could ever ask for, I forgot that I thought about quitting this sport… until recently.

My life is consumed with volleyball. Between August and November, I am in my season; after that we jump right into recruiting potential players for future years and coaching club volleyball. A couple weeks ago, we had a recruit who told us how she was thinking about quitting the sport because of a toxic coach who played more politics than volleyball.

Seeing this girl who has so much potential and skill crying and contemplating quitting volleyball because of her coach brought me back to sophomore year of high school when I was in the same spot. I know what I went through playing for my high school coach, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It makes me sad and mad that there are so many athletes that quit their sport because of a coach. The only reason I’m thankful to have had my high school coach as a coach was so that I can give advice to younger athletes, because I was in their shoes once. I persevered, and look at where I am now. That recruit I was talking about has decided to continue her volleyball career and I’d like to think that I had a very small part in that.

For any athletes that are still struggling with a toxic coach, here’s my advice to you: push through it and be strong. Push yourself and be the best you can be, not for your coach, but for yourself and your teammates. You cannot do anything about who your coach puts on the field or on the court. Do not give your coach the satisfaction of taking the game away from you. That will only give them justification of their actions, and they will continue to ruin the careers of future athletes. Don’t let your coach steal your passion for the game.