Dayna Gilley '21 Recruiting Profile

As a kid I was very involved with baseball. I had grown up loving baseball, as my mother had played with me since I was three years of age. As I grew older and entered high school sports, I became more competitive and more serious than I would have ever imagined. When I didn't play much on pony boy league baseball, I started to become discouraged and didn't think I had what it took to compete on that level. However, I had never quit on a team, I wasn't going to start now. So I toughed it out and went to every game and practice until the season came to a close. And on the day of my last game i had stayed after school waiting to go to the field inside my high school gymnasium. That's when two of my older friends, Brian Keene and Nick Ruvalcaba started shooting around. I had never played basketball before so i was never sure about the rules and lacked basic knowledge of the game. Yet, I was interested and wanted to play. And every since that day, I have practiced and studied basketball every second I got. And as I became more interested in the sport, I began to become more physically active, I started developing relationships with other basketball players and I even started wearing different clothes. For example, instead of wearing jeans and Converse, I began wearing shorts with Nike shoes. So basketball has not only influenced what I want to do when I get older, but it changed who I was and made me a more popular, outgoing person. Nowadays I hang out with friends and play pick up games as much as possible instead of sitting home playing video games, like I used to. Basketball for me is not only a career choice but my favorite hobby. And when i'm not playing basketball I’m usually hanging out with friends and family or going to school. I love the game of basketball because it's high paced, it takes a lot of skill and intelligence to master and to me its the most interesting sport there is.