Enid, OK - Written by Michael Kinney - VYPE
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Taylor Ashley White remembers the day like it was yesterday.
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As a freshman on the Chisholm girls junior varsity team, she had to endure a painful moment in her athletic career.
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“My freshman season, I played on our JV team, and I wasn’t the best player,” White said. “And the last game I got my jersey taken away and given to another player.”
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White said having her jersey taking away stung more than she thought it would. “It was really degrading and it was a wake up call for me – do I actually want to do this or not.”
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White could have easily faded away from the game after that. Instead, now as a sophomore, she went the other direction and has strived to be the best player on the court every time she plays. “My sister helped me see that if I wanted to get better, that I had to put in the work, and my parents got me a private coach, and I was on a traveling team during the winter, and they were my own age, so I was a real leader,” White said. “Once I started to put in the work and get better results I started to love the sport again, because I was actually good at it.”
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White also discovered how that she wanted to do more than just participate in volleyball. She found a hidden passion for the sport. “My sister is a senior this year, and she is our big player,” White said. “I had always followed in her footsteps, and I thought it would just be something for us to bond with, but recently in the past two years, I just loved it and I wanted to spend every moment doing it.”
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White is now the starting Libero for Chisholm. It’s a position that requires her to be a leader, despite only being 15.
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“I try and lead mostly by example,” White said. “If I’m being loud but then I’m not doing very well people won’t listen to me, but I try and follow my own advice, and then people start to follow. I never wanted to get caught in a shadow from a previous player. I wanted to come out and make a new name for myself, and not be what anyone else wanted me to be.”
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Enid Area Spotlight Athlete: Chisholm’s Taylor Ashley White
