Camryn Stevens '21 Recruiting Profile

What makes a me good candidate for a team is the fact that I am a team player that is passionate about striving for success, playing lacrosse, and building positive relationships with people around me.  I always bring my best while I'm on or off the field!  

Athletically, I play Men's Lacrosse, currently I am both an Attackman, and at times a Midfielder.  I have learned how to work with my team by learning their strengths and using those strengths to help us become better players as a team and hopefully score against the opposing team.  As a freshman and sophmore, I played on the Varsity team, because our school didn't have the funds to support two teams.  I felt very honored to play on the Varsity team as it gave me the opportunity to play and learn from upperclassmen with more skills and experience.  Last season our team was lacking in enough gear and jersey's.   Many times I have offered up my jersey and personal gear so that others could play (this is what encouraged my coaches to bestow upon me the Coaches Award during my Freshman season, I was the ONLY freshman to receive an award and was one out of four boys on a 40+ player team that received an award.)  During my Sophomore year, I demonstrated athletic growth enough for the coaching team to place me on the starting line-up.

At the start of my Junior year we have found that our team once again has a new head coach; and this year he is without any assistant coaches.  As a result, he has enlisted the assistance of upperclassmen to take the lead in scheduling conditioning,  leading practices, and offering assistance to underclassmen that are new to the sport.  I have personally recruited several underclassmen to the team and have been working with them both in and out of school to teach them ball/stick control and positioning.  

Senior year brought a wealth of new challenges with the COVID-19 Pandemic outbreak.  Our previous season was abruptly ended as it was just getting started and the North Carolina High School Sports Associated created a 2020-21 sport schedule that presented challenges for all sports by overlapping the fall and spring sport seasons.  My coach recruited me to be a lead recruiter to solicit additional players as we anticipated the loss of players that would choose a fall sport over the spring lacrosse.  I co-led virtual lacrosse club meetings with him and held in-person social distancing stick work clinics with current and potential players.   I was also promoted to co-team captain of the men's varsity lacrosse team to continue efforts started above and drive us into the season - if the Pandemic numbers decrease in our area enough for us to play this year.

Academically,  academics always come first!  I am passionate about and enjoy playing lacrosse, but I know that could be taken from me at any point due to injury, so I need to ensure that I am academically strong so that I can set myself up for positive career aspirations.  I am currently enrolled in the Project Lead the Way Engineering program and as part of the program I am required to take all Honors and some Advanced Placement courses - all of which I have excelled in.  This program is the elite program for Durham Public Schools and only accepts approximately 150 students each year out of close to 50,000 students in the district.  I have also been inducted into the National Honor Society and the National Technical Honor Society, which demonstrates my commitment to my academics.

I enjoy helping others!  My mom was a teacher (she now works in Curriculum & Instruction in the central office) and I often helped her and other teachers in her building on my down time.  In between my middle school and high school year and in between my freshman and sophmore year I served over 60 hours of volunteer service each year that qualified me to win the Durham Mayors Award.  I was honored to receive the award because I didn't volunteer to get an award, I volunteered for the shear purpose of helping others, and the teacher's I helped very much needed and appreciated the support I gave them.  In my state, teachers are so under appreciated and undervalued, I felt that my efforts (although minimal) was a step in the right direction.  I wouldn't be where I am today and won't get to where I want to be without the support from my teachers.   During my senior year I used my lunch time to support other students that needed technical help navigating the new realm on online learning with Canvas.

The summer before my junior year I had the opportunity to begin working part-time with State Farm, James Zewe's office.   In my interview, Mr. Zewe stated that it was my positive character and giving nature that encouraged him to hire a high-school student to work in his office.    While there I was able to gain experience in office clerical type work, business research, customer relations, and community service.  From Mr. Zewe and his staff I was able to gain insight on various personal financial and insurance aspects that will help me to be more prepared in the future.  Unfortunately with the COVID-19 Pandemic, his office was working remotely and he didn't need a lot of help during the summer before my senior year.  As a result, I was able to secure a position at a local Starbucks branch as a Barista.   In this position, I was able to gain a new set of workplace skills that include bi-lingual customer relations, time management, task management, priority problem solving, and employee workplace safety strategies both pertaining to the normal tasks and COVID-19 related.  Although I am fortunate at this time to not need these jobs to meet financial obligations, they provided me with skills that will help me be more prepared and better equipped for future academic and employment opportunities.