Noah De Villa '23 Recruiting Profile

There is a lot of competition for student-athletes. Not only do student-athletes need to be the best of the best in their sport, but they also need to be academically advanced to meet admission requirements for numerous colleges. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, as humans no one is perfect. To strive for perfection is also unhealthy, but my hunger to not let excuses hold me back is what sets me apart from my competition.

I have participated in sports all of my life. From baseball, basketball, track and field, and volleyball. Most of the time I was on two or three sports at the same time. I love sports, they challenge me mentally and physically and push my extreme competitiveness. Additionally, sports taught me skills such as leadership. I thoroughly enjoyed my time on every team but when I started volleyball I was hooked. After a horrible basketball season, I decided to pick up volleyball. My high school volleyball team completely re-sparked my competitive nature. My junior year was my first volleyball season, I made the varsity team, earned the co-captain role, and our team qualified for 2nd round CIF.

Knowing my senior year would be my last year to play volleyball with my team and avenge our CIF loss, I went all out and fully committed to volleyball. I started summer training and joined a club team with D1 coaches. When training got hard, I began to question what I was doing; if only I had started playing volleyball when I was younger, what is the point of going hard for one pre-season everyone is leagues ahead of me. My high school head coach knocked some sense into me, reminding me I have already shown intense improvement over a short period of time, and I am working hard because I love the game and my teammates and I want to keep playing as long as I can. His words reminded me why I love volleyball.

I love volleyball over other sports because of the experiences I had with my teammates and coach, I love the high-skill cap, and I love how I felt not being immediately good at something for once. The struggle to learn a difficult sport was so intriguing for me. I joined a club team to get more coaching perspectives and more reps. Learning new positions on the court also helps me be a better leader because I can be more empathetic to each one of my teammates.

I have plans for the future. Short term: I will continue training hard with my high school and club team. Mid-term: I will give my everything to lead my high school team to the CIF finals. Long Term: I want to continue to play volleyball competitively while studying my desired majors in Film and Engineering in college.