Ja’Queriyah Smith '22 Recruiting Profile

What is a challenge? A challenge is something that may be difficult to get through, but in life you have to. I’ve faced many different challenges but still remained the person I am today. The one challenge I had to face recently was the death of my father. I realized that life is not always what you may think but you still have to keep going. Never will I ever give up on anything in life. The challenges that I face only made me go ten times harder. Those challenges also made me the person I am today. I became interested in volleyball when I saw my sister playing in high school which was in 2016. I loved going to her games and seeing the girls pass the ball and even swinging at the ball. I instantly fell in love with the sport. I started to go to open gym with her when I was 13 years old. My academic goals for high school is to finish off strong with a’s and b’s as my final grades and to be top 25 in my class. I also want to leave high school with a 3.3 GPA. My goals for college are to get my masters degree in pre veterinary medicine and maintain at least a b+ in the class. While playing volleyball I learned more about myself than I thought I ever would. I learned how much of a team player I was. I also learned how determined I was. I used to have no confidence at all growing up and was very insecure, but playing volleyball taught me that you have to give it everything you got. Volleyball taught me that you don’t have time to be worrying about what other people say as long as you know what you want, you go for it. One thing that’s very unique about me is that I am very adventurous. I love exploring and trying new things no matter if it’s out of my comfort zone. I am a outside hitter mostly but is willing to try out any position.