John Paul McDonald '24 Recruiting Profile

     My primary goal in college is to improve my volleyball game as much as I can while also taking advantage of the given education to prepare myself fully for the real world. I have played many sports my entire life, from Cross Country to football, but I never took any interest in volleyball until the summer of 2020 when we set up a volleyball net at my beach cabin. I fell in love right away and ever since then I have dreamed of a volleyball based career. I started playing with my brothers and friends and quickly joined the Alderwood Boys & Girls club volleyball team. I quickly became more advanced than most of my teammates and quickly desired opportunities to play more. I then joined my old middle schools CYO Highschool volleyball team which introduced me to a more serious and advanced volleyball experience. From my freshman through junior years of Highschool I learned what I could playing for the Boys & Girls club and CYO team but I new that the skill level of those leagues would not provide me with the skills that I would need to play in college. My CYO coach told me about the Blue Royals select volleyball team which I then did some research on. I decided to join the team my senior year with the hopes that they would provide me with the skills necessary to get me to the next level. They exceeded my expectations and showed me how much work I needed to do. I was used to being the best player on both the Boys & Girls club and CYO team but I was one of the the worst players on the select team. Within a month I had learned so much and was able to improve my game in every was but even then I still was still far behind most of my teammates. I was making steady progress until I suffered a herniated disc in my lower back in August of 2023, just about 2 months into the season. I was able to catch some practices at the end of the season but missed most of it including all of the tournaments. I am planning on taking a gap year during the 2024-2025 season to play my last year of select before hopefully playing on college. I am more passionate about volleyball than almost anyone and take every opportunity I can to play. Due to weigh lifting I have some minor injuries which have hindered my ability to play as much as I would like including tennis elbow, shoulder issues, and my mostly healed lower back problems. Since getting injured I do all that I can to take care of my body and am recovering nicely. This is also part of the reason why I want to study Athletic Training during college. I have a passion for it being someone very interested in my own short and long-term health as well as the health of others.