Mike Reid

Josie Dalby, Girl’s rugby varsity, Team pictures

Everyone knows freshman year can be stressful for incoming students because its such a big change. Josie Dalby is one of those freshmen. Dalby had to deal with moving to a new city and starting high school. On top of all of that she played 3 sports throughout her first year at rocky. Varsity cheer, JV girls soccer, and varsity girls rugby. How did she do it? How was she able to have a social life, a school life, and a sports life all in one. We are getting the inside scoop on her story and how it all happened.

Being on a varsity sport comes with a lot of commitment for anyone on the team. Freshmen being on varsity feel that they have to live up to a certain standard because they’re one of the youngest on the team. According to h-o-m-e.org , “It is rare for freshmen to play on varsity. Freshmen are typically competing against more experienced upperclassmen for spots on the varsity team. During tryouts, coaches assess players based on their performance in different aspects of the sport” (h-o-m-e.org). Tryouts seem to be one of the most intimidating times for any athlete and doing any sports comes with a lot of challenges, let alone doing 3 in one year. According to Dalby, “The challenges that I faced while dealing with sports was the sports combining with each other and not being able to make it one a practice for one sport because of another sport. Having to deal with trying to learn different things for multiple sports at one time was probably the hardest thing because I was trying to focus on school, having a social life and being successful.”

Most sports are very time-consuming and come with a lot of challenges, but they also come with very positive aspects. Dalby stated, “Sports have impacted my life in a lot of ways, mostly for the better. They’ve kept me busy throughout this whole school year and they’ve taught me social skills and they’ve kept me active.” Dalby was then asked, out of the 3 sports you played this year, which was your favorite and why? Dalby responded, “Out of the sports I’ve played my favorite is probably soccer or rugby that I just started this year, because of the environment in both these sports were super good.” Dalby told us, “ Ive had to put a lot of time into these sports, cheer especially because its all year round. But time paid off, and ive gotten to be able to be on varsity for rugby and cheer.”

Nothing makes a good athlete without a good coach. Ali Marsden, the head coach of varsity cheer had some very positive remarks to say about Dalby as an athlete. Coach Marsden said, “Being able to coach josie was wonderful. She is an incredible athlete who is very coachable and it was great to have her on the team. She was very motivating and encouraging and she added a lot of strength in lots of different areas of our team.” Marsden was then asked what adversities she thinks Dalby had to overcome. Marsden stated, “She overcame a lot of adversities. She came here from a previous school at the very beginning of the year. She had to come into a new school and make new friends as a freshmen and had to handle all of that while being apart of multiple sports.”

Some people might think being apart of multiple sports at once wouldn’t be the smartest idea, especially for a freshmen. But in reality it’s a very good idea and its strongly encouraged. According to nfhs.org, “We strongly believe in the benefits of multi-sport participation. Each sport may challenge athletes in different ways and the skills developed such as agility, balance, and coordination may help in other sports as well” (www.nfhs.org).

All in all, Dalby is a very talented and determined athlete. She had to handle having a social life, a school life, and being apart of 3 sports through out her freshmen year. She is great at what she does and she super encouraging and an amazing athlete to coach. She can only go up from here and our school cant wait to see where she goes in her cheer, soccer, and rugby careers.