Gardner – After opening a gray steel door, Anyah Brown walks through a small corridor in the back of the gym at PikeView surrounded by a group of her teammates.
She’s early for volleyball practice and has been all week.
“It doesn’t really feel that early,” she says.
It’s because of how Brown spent her summer.
“I woke up every day at 4:30 a.m. so this I’m used to being early,” Brown chuckled. “This is nothing.”
While most seniors spent the summer relaxing, enjoying vacations, Brown spent her break in the sweltering Missouri heat, completing her basic training for the National Guard.
While her family enjoyed vacations after a successful spring – her father Ronnie Olson led Shady Spring to its first basketball state championship in school history while she helped PikeView to the state tournament for the second straight year – she sacrificed to better herself.
Though she never anticipated this would be her life just a few years ago.
“A recruiter came to school and I never thought about the military before,” Brown said. “And then I just saw the benefits and I really wanted to do my part. I met a lot of great people through our school’s ROTC program and it just really inspired me. I was like ‘yeah, I’m going to do my part and better myself even if I do sacrifice a summer or two.’ That’s what I wanted to do.
While it would be easy for her to focus on the negatives – the physical demand, the early mornings, the separation from her family and friends – she chose to focus on making the best of the situation. It took some time.
“The first three weeks I wanted to quit every single day,” Brown said. “Every single day I woke up and asked myself ‘Why did I do this? Why did I put myself through something like this?’ but getting letters from my family and pictures of my volleyball team helped. Everybody supporting me and having my back helped me through it and just making myself stronger through the process helped. I woke up one morning and told myself ‘This is good for me. I can do this,’ and that helped a lot.
“I definitely got physically stronger and it helped me a lot mentally too. Before I left, I didn’t know how to control my emotions but they taught me a lot about controlling my emotions. How to keep a poker face and how to assess issues better and it made me a more mature, better person.
Though it’s hard for her coach to see much of the change, because she was an excellent leader beforehand, he sees a more rounded leader and person.
“It’s hard to distinguish her because she was that kind of leader before she left,” Compton said. “But she’s even more focused. But she understands the different types of leadership. The dictator, the leading by example and she knows that stuff now. And on top of captain of the volleyball team she’s the battalion commander of our ROTC program, so she’s the top cadet. She’s wearing like three hats this year coming out.”
Those multiple hats are important for Brown, but not just as a leader. One of the lessons she took away from her summer was how to fill a role when needed – leader or follower.
“It taught me how to be a leader more proficiently,” Brown said. “You know how to push people differently based on how you got pushed by those drill sergeants and it teaches you how to be a follower and how to be a leader. It helped me with teaching these girls how to keep going when you don’t feel like going anymore.”
Though she wears many hats off the court, sports are a key part of her life. They helped her through the early period in basic training, giving her something to look forward to. She wasted little time returning to the gym after returning home.
Her first day back in West Virginia, she went straight to volleyball practice without taking a break. It only made sense for a player that was named captain of the team for the second straight year.
“I’ve never had a player do anything quite like she did,” PikeView head coach Steve Compton said. “I was concerned because my daughter had just went to basic back in January and she got there during the height of COVID and she tested positive. Well they kept pushing her finish date out. I was telling Anyah before she left that if she got down there and tested positive she might not get back to get her practices in, but thankfully she did.
“But no, I’ve never had a player do what she did, but that just tells you what kind of person she is. Instead of getting back and going on a vacation, she was in the gym with her teammates.”
“I was really excited to get back and play volleyball,” Brown said. “I kept thinking about it the entire time I was doing basic training. I was really anticipating coming to practice and when we woke up I told my mom ‘we’ve gotta get going’ because I needed to get to practice.”
The results of her hard summer were apparent in practice early, not that she struggled in years past. When the team would make a mistake in practice and run to atone, she never stopped until her coaches told her to. But a very specific example from practice this week made the difference that much more noticeable for Compton.
“She’s got so much more endurance,” Compton said. “We were talking (Tuesday) because it was so humid and hot in here because the air conditioning wasn’t on and I was like ‘man, it’s hot,’ and she was like ‘yeah, but they just don’t know. I went through this all summer in full uniform so this isn’t bad.’ She understands that part of it and the nutrition part of being a great athlete. She’s just a full-rounded player and leader now.”
The summer served as an opportunity for Brown to add to better herself and add new tools, but also sharpened the ones she already had. As Compton spoke about her on the side before practice, he gushed about how she’s been a natural leader since she was an underclassmen, doing what the team asked of her.
The notable instance comes when she was asked to switch positions as a sophomore, suiting up as a setter. The position isn’t as glamorous as a hitter, but just as important. That’s a reality she’s accepted and fully bought into.
“I didn’t like it at first,” Brown said. “I started as a setter my sophomore year. I was a hitter my freshman year and I started as the varsity setter my sophomore year which was a big change. The hitters get the hit so they get the glamour, but without the setter you can’t have a good hit and without the passer you can’t have a good set, so it all falls into a puzzle. Each player is equal even though the hitter gets a lot of attention. But I wanted to do what my team needed me to do and I’ve learned a lot.”
Now as she begins her senior year ahead on her path after high school – she wants to work in military, possibly as a lawyer – she has her goals set high. Accepting the role of setter early on has her on the cusp of school record she wants to break. And as a multi-sport athlete the goal is the same across the board.
“I’m almost at my 1,00th assist,” Brown said. “Setter is basically like the quarterback on the football field so they got to make sure everything’s going smoothly and get it to the hitters so they can do their job. I learned a lot and my goals are related to my experiences. I want to make the state tournament in every sport and I want to pass on what I’ve learned to the younger girls. They’re the future of this team and being a leader, I want to set them up for success and help them however I can.”
Contact Tyler Jackson at tylerjackson@lootpress.com, call him at 304-731-5542 and follow on Twitter @tjack94