Q&A: Senior student athletes reflect on their sport

As the school year ends, seniors athletes will either be continuing or taking a pause from their sport after graduating. Take a look at their favorite memories, toughest times and overall reflection of their sports:

What sport do you play? How long have you been playing it for and what made you want to start the sport?

Senior Jake Foughty: “I’ve been playing water polo for around five to six years. What made me want to start playing was randomly scrolling through [my] TV and [encountering] the international friendly play of the United States in Croatia. I was like, ‘Oh yeah this is cool. I want to try it.’”

Senior Dana Gingrey: “I have played basketball for five years. I think my parents just put me into it. I played a lot of sports growing up [and] just liked basketball, so I kept playing. It’s very fast paced, and I feel like there’s a lot of freedom, and I really enjoyed it.”

Senior Dante Bush: “I play on the Hebron golf team [and] I’m one of the captains. It’s actually a funny story [on] how I started playing. It was over 10 years ago; I’ve been playing for 11[years] now. After [a] birthday party [for] one of my friends in elementary school, I wanted to play more putt putt. It was one of those mini golf courses [and I said,] ‘You know what mom, I want to do it again’ and she signed me up for my first golf lesson, and it stuck.”

Senior Srijia Venna: “[I run in] cross country and track. I’ve been doing both of them since seventh grade, so six years now. It’s one of those sports where it’s a good balance between individual and team sport and, if I’m being totally honest, I just joined it in seventh grade, tried it out and enjoyed it and continued doing it.”

How do you think your sport helped shape who you are now?

Foughty: “Definitely physicality [wise]. I was really weak in middle school, I wasn’t strong [and] I was like a stick to be honest. I was kind of discouraged because of my size. I was skinny, small [and] I wanted to be this big football star. That never happened until water polo came and I was like ‘oh, I’m actually pretty good at this.’ Water polo helped me become a lot stronger – I’m a lot more conditioned, physical and aggressive as an athlete.”

Gingrey: “In basketball, you make a mistake in the game or do something that’s not good, you can’t stop the game, be upset and let it affect the next play. You can kind of parallel that to life outside of sports because, even if something bad happens or doesn’t go your way, you can’t let it affect your future decisions. I feel like little lessons like that kind of shaped who I am [today].”

Bush: “It’s taught me a lot of life lessons [with] patience and leadership, and just being able to get back up [and] keep fighting above the water. The people I’ve gotten to know, becoming captain, getting to work with the team, trying to have that leadership role and trying to lead other kids my age, it’s definitely a new experience I wouldn’t have gotten [without] golf. It’s shaped how I interact with other people and how I interact with myself and just how I motivate myself. Even on tests, how I study, how I [did my] college application essays, it’s just having that motivation to keep going [and] keep fighting, and I’d say that’s definitely where the game of golf has helped me the most.”

Venna: “Cross country and track both instill a sense of discipline and accountability for yourself. It’s having to show up for you and your teammates on a daily basis, and it’s that discipline to wake up and do things that definitely don’t feel good. It’s one of those things and I think that carries on into aspects like academics and other extracurriculars.”