Freshman Morgan Young is a multi-sport athlete who competed on the La Salle girls varsity volleyball team during the fall season and now plays for the La Salle girls varsity basketball team.
“At some points it’s hard to manage schoolwork, social life, and both of the sports,” she said. “You have to prioritize your time.”
This means sometimes sacrifices are needed, Young explained, with her often going through the thought process of “okay, I can’t hangout because I have homework to do and practice later.” Although this can be difficult, she has become accustomed to managing her responsibilities.
Young began playing both sports as early as kindergarten, participating on various recreational and CYO teams until she started to play club basketball for Northwest Select around two or three years ago.
“I am passionate about it,” she said, attributing her original interest in basketball to her parents, as Young’s dad played basketball in college while her mom played in high school. “It’s like a family-introduced thing, but I just love it.”
Before games, Young will listen to music to focus, typically rap and artists such as Drake. “Usually our team does homework before [games],” she said. “Then I’ll put my headphones in and I’ll sit down and meditate with the music and just envision myself making shots.”
For Young, her dad is her biggest supporter.
“I remember once in our driveway, it was pouring down rain, and it was like 10 at night, and we were just out there shooting free throws,” she said.
Along with her father’s support, Young said that her parents, and to a greater degree her grandparents, have helped shape her into the person she is today.
“They were the ones that whenever I would struggle with something, or get down on myself, they would bring me back up,” she said.
Young recalls a time when her grandma encouraged her to fail in order to teach her the value of it. “We were making cookies, and she was like ‘let’s switch up the recipe and fail on purpose’ and us trying to fail actually created one of our family recipes,” Young said.
In addition to her family’s help, and her personal love for the sport, the community surrounding basketball keeps Young motivated to play for the school. Her favorite part about playing in the La Salle team is the team culture, she said, and the fact that “the older seniors, juniors, sophomores — they’re all nice.”
She also cherishes the opportunity to work hard and progress on her athletic journey.
“Getting to play with my friends, but also getting to push myself,” said Young, and “being rewarded by not just winning, but also the little things… just every day going to practice and being like ‘today I get to work hard.”
Young’s favorite basketball team is the Golden State Warriors because of their competitiveness, something that she admires in players like Draymond Green and Stephen Curry especially.
In her free time, Young enjoys painting and playing instruments like the piano and viola. “I got introduced to piano by my mom because she wanted to incorporate something into my life that was more musical,” she said. Because of that, Young has been playing the piano since fourth grade and the viola since sixth, inspired by her friends in the orchestra in middle school.
“I decided to join them, just for the social part of it, and I actually saw that I really liked it,” Young said.
Recently for entertainment, Young finished watching the TV series “The Good Place,” which has become one of her favorites.
In the future, she is unsure of what she will pursue, but currently has an interest in marketing and business fields for future careers.
An ideal she tries to live by is kindness. She highlighted that compassion is important to be “a good general human too.”
“I try to treat everyone with respect and not judge them before I actually know them,” she said. “You never know who your next partner, teammate, boss, classmate, or teacher will be, so you never want to judge or be mean to someone without knowing their full backstory, and even if you do, give them the benefit of the doubt.”
