Peyton Smith '20 Recruiting Profile

I do not remember a time in my life before sports.    If I wasn't playing them I was watching them.  Volleyball to me is more than just a sport I play or a hobby I do to keep me out of trouble.   It is how I cope with stress, and deal with the dramas of a high school teenager.  Volleyball not only has taught me how to be a better athlete but a better person.  Not only to others but to myself.

Before volleyball I was an uptight, mistakes are bad, you may never fail, type of girl.  We all know that with an attitude like that in the sport of volleyball you will get eaten alive by you thoughts.  Over the years I have loosened up and became more accepting of failure and mistakes.  I have also learned to have a very short memory and not sweat the little things.  But the biggest lesson the sport of volleyball has taught me is to live in the moment and to not worry so much about what can go wrong or what should happen next.  If the game is tied 24-24 you cannot worry about who is going to win the game, you have to worry about who is gonna win this point to make it 25-24.  Same in life, I cannot worry about the effect of my next action, I can only worry about my next action.