Brooke Chavez is no ordinary senior. Aside from being an amazing student, she’s an even better volleyball player. For 4 years on varsity and 5 years overall, she has been saucing on the court as an outside hitter and opposite. Her incentive to play at first was due to her friends’ suggestions. “A lot of people told me to play volleyball because I’m tall,” she said.
Her role is to control the offense and tell her team what’s happening on the other side of the net. Other than her performance as a player, Brooke’s performance as a teammate is also crucial. She says, “I consider my role to be to help bring the team together and be a source of encouragement, and try to be a role model for younger players.” Although she claims neither to be a leader nor feel any pressure to be a leader, she certainly is a leading figure for the team.
Her biggest accomplishments over the past years have not only been going undefeated up until region finals in her senior season, but also recovering from an ACL, MCL, and Meniscus tear in time to play her last season. Her injury was inflicted in the Fall of 2020 during her first practice for a National team based in Richmond. It was a truly devastating accident for her career. She faced reconstructive surgery and a 9-12 month recovery. She says, “I was determined to return to volleyball throughout my recovery and worked very hard in physical therapy to return in the time that I did.” Even during her recovery period, she stayed as a leader for the team by becoming an assistant coach for the Varsity team. Even though she was dying to get back on the court, she channeled that energy into her coaching a group of middle school girls, and helped them to find success.
Outside of volleyball, Brooke works at the Grit coffee shop in Old Trail, which was an obvious job choice because of her love of coffee. She also loves hanging out with friends and hiking, her favorite spot being the Devil’s Marbleyard in Natural Bridge which her dad has been taking her to since she was a little kid. She has a deep connection with all her friends and family and says she, “would give up the world for them.”