The long, hard climb to the top

This story originally appeared last weekend on www.prepvolleyball.com

By Scott White
Editor

Dec. 2 — It’s funny how things work out sometimes.

Four years ago, Ashley Edwards decided she’d rather be a Stingerette than a Honeybee. And had she been a better dancer, she wouldn’t have been prancing around the Strahan Coliseum court at Texas State University last month wearing a gold medal, joining her teammates in lofting the state championship trophy high above their heads.

“Before my freshman year I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to keep playing sports, so I tried out for the Stingerettes,” says Edwards. The Stingerettes are the Stephenville High School dance squad that performs at halftime of football games.

“I discussed it with her mother and said, ‘We can’t let her do this,’” Stephenville volleyball coach Fran Campos remembers. “I said, ‘Pray she doesn’t make the team.’”

Apparently the prayers worked. Or maybe the director of the Stingerettes didn’t need a 6'1" power lifter doing high kicks.

“If I had made the team I would have danced and not played sports,” said Edwards.

And it is also possible the Stephenville Honeybees would not be this year’s Texas Class 4A state champions. Although Edwards is rarely a team leader in the main statistical categories, there is no doubt that her imposing presence on the right side forces opponents to alter the way they attack the Honeybees.

“She puts up a heck of a block,” says Campos. “In the last year her swing has gotten a lot quicker and there are times she can really attack the line.”

Edwards is not the typical 6'1" right side (if there is such as thing). She’s also a power lifter, a basketball player and throws the shot put and discus for the track team. Go up against Edwards and you are going up against an athlete who is big AND strong.

You also go up against an athlete who is an example to all young athletes who wonder if the hard work will ever pay off.

Edwards started her volleyball career at the bottom – the very bottom. As a seventh grader she was on the “D” team.

“She was tall and uncoordinated,” says Campos. “She developed very late.”

“I wasn’t coordinated at all,” Edwards agrees. “But I was always one of the tallest players. Those early years are when they thinned out the players from the ones that they thought would be good players and those that wouldn’t. I think I was a girl they thought would quit.”

Not so, says Campos. A 5'9" seventh grader, no matter how uncoordinated, will always attract the attention of the coaches.

“We started watching her in the seventh grade because she was so big,” continues Campos. “A lot of girls develop late so we knew the potential was there. We just kept hanging in there with her and gave her a chance to make errors and learn.”

Edwards’ progress was painfully slow. As an eighth grader she was on the “C” team. Coaches briefly promoted her to the “B” team, but that experiment didn’t last long and she was quickly sent back down. That led to Edwards’ decision to try out for the school drill team.

“I thought I did pretty good,” she remembers, “but I didn’t make the team,”

As a freshman she was on the “B” team. She was on the JV as a sophomore. By her junior year, all the work began to pay off for Edwards and her coaches when she became a full-fledged member of the varsity Honeybees.

“When I made varsity I thought, ‘Hey, I’m on varsity so I must be pretty good,” she says. “But to be honest, I don’t have a clue what kept me going. I’m a really strong Christian and I know that God had a reason for it all. And my parents helped a lot. My parents always said that once you start something you have to keep going. A lot of people backed me up along the way, but a lot of it was just myself gaining confidence.”

Even as late as the end of last season, when the Bees came within one game of advancing to the state tournament, Edwards admits she still was fighting self doubt.

“It seems like either I’m on or I’m off,” she says. “If I have a good game I get real confident. But there were times last year when I said, ‘I’m not really good at this. Do I want to keep going, or just play basketball.’”

Fortunately for the Honeybees, Edwards returned and played a vital role in the drive to the state championship with wins over Friendswood and Highland Park at the state tournament.

“Last year we were one game from state, so this season we definitely had one goal,” she says. “From the start we were saying we are going to state. I don’t know if everyone else really believed that, but I know that I did. We played some 5A teams early in the season and stayed with them so I knew we could do it.”

Perhaps it was because she had been through such a struggle that Edwards says she was not intimidated by the state tournament environment or playing in front of 4,600 fans in the finals.

"Coach told us not to look into the stands, just focus on the game,” Edwards says, “I admit that I looked up a couple of times and it was exciting to see all of the people, but it really felt like just another tournament. It didn’t feel like we were the best team in the state when it was over. It was just a feeling like we won another game. It was like, ‘OK, we won that one, who do we play the next?’ ”

For Edwards next was a basketball game only two nights after the state championship match. “I just got in from basketball practice,” she said Monday afternoon. “We have a game tonight and tomorrow, so I have to focus on that now.”

Then there is powerlifting. And then there is the track season. And then there are the frequent visits to local junior highs to encourage young athletes not to give up on their dreams.

And then on to college to play volleyball?

“I don’t know if I’m going to play in college or just be a bum,” laughs Edwards, whose sister Markeshia attends Stephen F. Austin on a track scholarship. “I want to major in communications so I would have to make sure they have the degree that I want and that it’s a good school.”

Regardless of whether there is more volleyball in her future, Edwards says there is tremendous satisfaction in knowing that an awkward “D” team seventh grader is now a state champion.

“I had a freshman coach who would keep telling me when I was really frustrated, ‘You haven’t developed yet, you have to keep going and working at it,’” Edwards says, thinking back. “She was at the semifinals on Thursday and she came up to me after we won and said, ‘What did I tell you? I told you it would pay off.’ She was right. It really did.’ ”