Pirates show love and support to athletes, non-stop. We cheer them on every few nights at their games as they excel in their sports and achieve remarkable results. But what we don’t always see is the struggle and strategies behind the scenes. Juggling such a crucial and significant role with personal needs is extremely challenging. It’s unfortunate that it’s easy to forget that behind every athlete, is a person with their own life and challenges.
And we have many athletes at San Leandro High School that can second this, but girls volleyball captain Zoe Gaffney is an honorable one: this senior played volleyball for all 4 years at San Leandro High and 3 of those years on varsity. During her junior year, she joined track and field, for the fun of it, and was very successful throughout the season. She ended up competing in multiple events, down to the CIF championships.
“I would say that track is something that I valued and had to give up in order to maintain my ability and my body’s condition to compete in volleyball,” said Gaffney, who plans on pursuing the sport in college.
Balancing life and sports is challenging but the balance of multiple sports is never acknowledged for athletes that fall under that category.
“One major takeaway from being actively involved in both sports and academics is time management,” said Gaffney.
It’s not just about attending practice and trying to come home in time for dinner whilst getting homework done, but rather focusing on time management.
“It’s something that I’ve had to learn to manage along the last three years that I’ve been a varsity student athlete,” said Gaffney. “As a Co-captain and a senior it’s been very challenging to manage, however one thing that I especially gained is the community and the many, many friendships and bonds that are extremely unique to volleyball itself.”
She highlighted not only the tactics she took in order to manage this lifestyle, but also cherished the good from the challenges she had to face.
But just like every other athlete, it wasn’t always smooth sailing for Zoe.
“During my sophomore year, I completely ruptured my ACL and meniscus,” she said.
While mentioning how it’s been a significant aspect in her career so far, this injury laid out a path of motivation for her future. Although this was quite a deafeating situation, it pushed her to keep going whenever she felt discouraged.
It not only takes time and physical strength, but the mental ability to recover and perform better than ever is rarely recognized.
“It’s something that many people don’t know about me just by looking at me or watching me play.” she said while talking about her injury.
What we see on the outside is significant but what goes on behind the scenes is what we should applaud for. The rebooting after being completely hit down takes strength that can’t be explained in words.
But how much of an impact does volleyball actually have on an athlete’s personal life?
“On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate volleyball’s impact on my personal life as an 8. It’s challenging to battle the first 3 months of school with required practices and games,” she said.
“However I say an 8 because of the fact that I also play competitive volleyball outside of school.”
This balance is, of course, not easy. It takes sacrifices, priorities, and reality checks to achieve what makes you happy. It won’t always be accomplishment after accomplishment but it will definitely prove progress and confidence after time.
“I’m very proud of how far I’ve come, considering I was awarded ‘WACC Player of The Year’ for this year’s season,” Gaffney said.
