Mia McGrath has been part of the sports activities world since her childhood. Moreover volleyball, she additionally tried out soccer, basketball, softball, tennis, swimming and diving, however her ardour for volleyball is rather more profound. Rising up along with her mom and father, who performed division one volleyball and soccer at Western Kentucky, sports activities had been an enormous a part of her id. School athletics was all the time the purpose for McGrath. Her affinity for volleyball began at a really younger age. “Once I was little, my mother really put my footprints on a volleyball. I used to be born into it.”
Her mom has been her largest position mannequin via all of it. McGrath notes that her mom all the time pushed her to be the most effective model of herself. After practices and video games, her mother was all the time there to help her and even helped her get recruited by collegiate volleyball packages. On the age of eight, her mom would come residence late after teaching volleyball and would discover McGrath hitting a volleyball in opposition to the storage door at midnight. “Having slightly volley mother was good for me.”
Within the fourth grade, McGrath’s grade faculty, sadly, didn’t have a volleyball crew, however this didn’t cease her from pursuing her ardour. McGrath begged her grade faculty athletic director to make a fourth grade women’ volleyball crew; ultimately, they caved into her request. Ever since she made that fourth-grade crew, McGrath has been in love with volleyball.
Rising up surrounded by sports activities has had larger lasting results on McGrath, extra than simply paying dividends in her athletic talents. “Rising up as a really athletic child and dealing arduous every single day, has made me a extra assured particular person. Sports activities, on the whole, has made me turn into a greater particular person.”
McGrath is blissful to see extra recognition given to feminine athletes in the present day. She cites that feminine sports activities have turn into rather more aggressive since her mom’s volleyball tenure at Western Kentucky, which can hopefully draw in additional followers. Despite the fact that she nonetheless notices there’s a larger fan base for male sports activities, McGrath notes that the tradition round girls’s sports activities is altering for the higher.
Outdoors of her mom, McGrath has all the time regarded as much as Kerri Walsh Jennings. Jennings is an American skilled seaside volleyball participant who has collected three Olympic gold medals and a one-time Olympic bronze medal and has probably the most profession wins as of 2016, profitable 135 worldwide and home tournaments in seaside volleyball throughout her profession. McGrath used to play seaside volleyball throughout her summers earlier than faculty and all the time regarded as much as Jennings as a result of her immense success. “I needed to be her (Jennings) someday.”
Since ending her stellar freshman marketing campaign with the Tigers, the place she earned a spot on the All-ACC Freshman Workforce, McGrath has had an inspirational message that she needs her youthful self knew. “Don’t let anybody inform you which you could’t do something that you’re obsessed with. Keep true to your self. In case you work arduous, you are able to do something.” Her phrases of encouragement will hopefully encourage the following era of feminine athletes.