Taylor Russell '21 Recruiting Profile

My love for volleyball came from my mother who played volleyball in high school. She began to teach me how to play in our backyard and with this new passion; I started attending volleyball clinics when I was seven years old. 

My first year of organized volleyball, at Glass City Volleyball Club I made a second tier team, that team wasn’t very successful. I realized at that time that I needed to take steps to improve my skills so that I could make an Elite team in the future. I took private lessons, attended all the extra training my club offered, and participated in the extra training at my school. In addition, I attended summer college camps to improve my skill sets. 

These extra steps paid off for me. The following year I made the Elite team at Glass City. Our team was very successful and finished second in the Ohio Valley Region Championship Tournament. This taught me that putting in extra work and making the effort to improve my skill sets, I could be successful. This is now who I am as a person, I am driven to try hard, and always improving. I have continued to follow this passion which has helped me to improve at not only volleyball, but has helped me be successful in all aspects of my life. My academic goal for High School is to graduate with a 4.0 Grade Point Average or higher. I will be taking honors classes and College Credit Plus classes to help me achieve this goal. My academic goal in college is to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree in Forensic Science or Elementary Education. 

I am a fiercely competitive person on and off the floor. My coaches have looked to me for leadership in which I was honored to be considered for captain of my JV Team as a Freshman. It also carries over into the classroom, where my peers have named me group leader for classroom projects. But I also have a fun loving side of my personality that can get the group or team to laugh and loosen up to help them achieve their best results.

I would like to play volleyball in college to continue to improve my volleyball skills, continue building relationships with my teammates, and to make a deeper connection to the University I chose. Furthermore, I would like to play college volleyball to help keep me motivated, develop time management skills, and for the academic support. Lastly, I would like to play college volleyball to release stress, maintain physical fitness, and to visit different places.