MATTHEW RUSSO '19 Recruiting Profile

My name is Matthew Russo. I am 18  years old from Mokena, Illinois. I am a Senior at Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox, Illinois and will graduate in May of 2019.  I would like an opportunity to continue to play Men's Volleyball in college as a Libero.

I am looking for a faith based college that will be the right “fit” for me.  It is important to me that the college I attend will have good academics, competitive athletics, a vibrant spiritual life, affordable tuition, friendly people, and be the "right size" because all of this will help me grow as a person.   

As a student, I have worked very hard at Providence Catholic High School.  It is considered a tough college preparatory school that is very demanding (with a harder than average grade scale & GPA ranking system) and it supports high level athletics in the difficult Chicago Catholic League- Blue.  I currently have a 3.26 weighted GPA and have achieved 1^st and 2^nd Honors, Honor Roll since Freshman year.  Providence Catholic is an Augustinian school that teaches the Christian values of Truth, Unity and Love to all of their students.  I believe that their standards have helped form who I am as an individual and have prepared me to attend a college of my choice.  While at Providence, I have played 2 years of football and 4 years of boys volleyball.  In volleyball, I have been chosen to be a starter on the Varsity team my Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior year as an Outside Hitter.

As a Christian and volunteer, I am part of Reach Student Ministries Youth Group at Hickory Creek Community Church.  In our youth group, we do many community outreach activities like helping the homeless, work at food pantries, help the elderly, general community landscaping, and pack food for hungry children.  I also help my grandfather at the Lions Club which is a humanitarian service organization that fund raises to help those less fortunate in our community.  They have sponsored the building of a new community playground, donated to the Treasure Chest Foundation to purchase toys for children with cancer, support vision/ hearing screenings at local stores, and give many turkey or ham dinners for the holidays to local residents that are down on their luck.

As a volleyball athlete, I am a very determined, disciplined, aggressive, energetic, intense, coachable, athletic, hardworking, fair-minded, humble and an encouraging team player.  I am also unafraid of tough training sessions, never take the easy way out of anything, have courage to face challenges by being strategic and love highly competitive games.  I began boys competitive volleyball at an elite volleyball club at 11 years old.  I played on a 14-year-old team while I was 11 years old and played football as an additional sport. I really love the sport of volleyball and have enjoyed playing for elite clubs on the top teams in the positions of Outside Hitter, Defensive Specialist, and Libero.  I've been very fortunate to train with Dave Deuser who is the former Great Lakes Lightening Mens PVL Head Coach, to be selected and play on the USAV A1 Future Select training Team as an Outside, to be selected and play on the USAV A1 Select training team as an Outside, and selected as the USAV A1 Alternate Libero and to the USAV A2 training team as a Libero (unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts).  I am also very thankful to have been a member at two of the best, most competitive elite volleyball clubs in the Midwest: Ultimate VBC in Frankfort, IL; Sports Performance VBC in Aurora, IL; and Uno Volleyball Club in Joliet, IL.   For the 2017/18 season, I was a member of Sports Performance VBC on the ALPHA team and I'm proud to say that our Alpha team won the  gold metal in the USAV 18's USA Boys Junior National Championships!  For the 2018/19 season, our Uno Elite team has been very successful and have the following finishes for the season: Sky High Pre-Season Champions (10/28/18), Lewis University Invite Tournament Champions (11/18/18), Adidas Boys Bounce Off Tournament Champions (1/5/19), Boys Winter Championships (Chicago) , 6th place finish Open division, 2019 Southwest Boys Classic (Houston) Tournament Champions (Houston, February), Dennis Lafata Classic (St. Louis) Tournament, 5th place finish Open division.

Finally, when I'm not training, I love to go on vacation in Florida, play Xbox, watch college football games, visit my grandparents, play in local sand volleyball pick up games, and play competitive 2 on 2 sand volleyball on the lake shore beaches in downtown Chicago.    

My website

https://sites.google.com/view/matthewrussovolleyball/profile?authuser=0