Shane Aitken '23 Recruiting Profile

My name is Shane Aitken and I'm a rising junior at Saint Margaret's. I'm in the graduate class of 2023 and play club volleyball at A4 volleyball club. Ever since my dad showed me beach volleyball as a kid, I knew it was my future. Despite being too young to play on an indoor team, as I was seven years old, I would wake up early on the weekends to go down and play beach with members of my community. When I was thirteen, I tried out for my first club team, without any indoor knowledge and ended up winning gold playing libero, and at times outside hitter, that same year. I've been playing at the highest level of indoor volleyball as a libero ever since and want to continue this journey in college as a student athlete.  Ever since my first year of volleyball I've been known to be the leader of the team both on and off the floor, controlling the energy and being the "spark" of the team. What truly sets me aside from the rest is my work ethic towards both academics and volleyball. I've always had such a high standard for myself academically, not even getting one a- throughout all of middle school as well as my freshmen year in high school. I've gotten the head of school honors, the highest academic award all four semesters so far of my high school career. This past year I took four honors classes, and one AP, getting a 4.25 GPA. It's that standard I have for myself as well as my teammates that makes my mentality different from the rest. I'd do anything for my teammates but when we step on the court, I am the person that my teammates look to for leadership and accountability. I do what I can to put my team in the position to win and believe the way to be ready is to practice how we are going to play. What truly makes someone a student athlete in my opinion is not only what they do on the court, when the spotlight is on them, but how they conduct themselves off the court as well.  Whether it be waking up at 7AM each weekend in which we don't have a tournament to go and play beach, getting that extra lift in at night after a long two hour practice, I am constantly trying to improve myself as an athlete, scholar and a person.