Blake Laurita
Staff Writer
Junior beach volleyball star Maddie Micheletti has recently accomplished a lifelong goal by committing to the University of California Berkeley.
Micheletti has played beach volleyball all three years she has attended Costa. Recently, the University of Berkeley took interest and offered Micheletti a verbal spot on the team to which she gladly accepted.
“I fell in love with the campus and the San Francisco area,” Micheletti said. “I knew that’s where I wanted to go, so I continued to improve my game until they offered me a verbal spot on the team.”
Maddie had received letters from multiple colleges who were interested in her. When she got a letter from Berkeley, she set up a time where she could go up to the school on an unofficial visit.
“Since NCAA rules don’t allow college coaches to directly talk to you until September 1 of your junior year, I continued emailing the coach through my indoor coach at the time,” Micheletti said.
Although Micheletti’s dad, Brian Micheletti, helped her to get in, the recruitment process for college athletics is still a challenging learning process because of how competitive playing volleyball at college level is.
“The process has been going on for a really long time, one to two years now,” Micheletti said. “My parents took videos of me at my tournaments so I could send it to colleges.”
Getting a scholarship to a school is extremely competitive and sometimes videos alone are not enough. Brian Micheletti created a website for coaches to see Micheletti’s stats and help her get noticed.
“I made the website to post highlights and results from the tournaments Maddie (Micheletti) played in,” Mr. Micheletti said. “The colleges could then look at it any time without having to search very hard for it.”
Although much time and energy was put into getting a spot on Berkeley’s roster by Micheletti and her family, all of their hard work and Micheletti’s determination paid off in the end.
“Visiting colleges on unofficial visits was the highlight of the recruiting process, as we got to see Maddie (Micheletti) being courted by colleges interested in her,” Brian Micheletti said. “Hearing that Cal offered her a spot to play beach volleyball made all of the work worthwhile.”
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