By Joe O’Leary The Mountain Times
What purpose do high school sports serve? Obviously, for the upper echelon of athletes, there’s a bigger importance behind everything. But for the more typical current or former high school athletes, the most crucial moments are likely to be times of bonding with teammates, or encountering situations that create personal development outside of the sport – things that can be valuable long after graduation.
Soft-spoken and generally unassuming Sandy High School senior Morgan Wright has spent all four years at the school serving in a practice, game or meet after essentially every day of school. Playing soccer in the spring, basketball in the winter, and participating in distance running for the school’s track and field team in the spring, Wright has used sports as an outlet to personally grow and find friends.
“It’s helped me outside of the sports. I met my best friend in soccer freshman year. Most of my friends I’ve met through sports,” Wright said. Being one of only three seniors on a basketball team that struggled to pick up wins and coming off the bench in soccer, Wright has been able to take value from things outside of simply performing well in games – finding reward in being a leader for younger players and enjoying the quality time she has with teammates.
“Even if I’m not necessarily on the field, I still work my hardest in practice to make sure I’m pushing someone that will be. Just keep showing up,” Wright said. In any team environment, it’s crucial to have people that want to further group success by any means necessary. To make things even better, Wright seems to have multiple and different definitions of success.
“It was harder for soccer because I didn’t play as much. So I’d put in a lot of work, and even if I wasn’t seeing it pay off [personally], my team would still win and make it worth it. But for basketball, I play a lot, put in a lot of work for that – I enjoy playing and being around my teammates so I see it paying off even if we usually don’t get the results we hope for in games,” Wright explained.
High school is all about changing. Everyone walks in one way and comes walks out wildly differently. The things you spend your time doing teach you lessons and rattle you around a bit to recognize those changes.
Wright spent her time keeping her head down and showing up every day no matter if her team was losing with her on the bench or winning with her playing every single minute of the game.
“When I was a freshman I honestly wasn’t really expecting to ever make it this far and get to play on varsity teams. It’s cool to see how far I’ve come,” Wright said.