Danielle Cuttino is an international-caliber volleyball star at Ben Davis High. And don't sell her short in basketball, either.
Photo by Heston Quan
As a 6-foot-1 eighth-grader,
Danielle Cuttino already was an established basketball player in the middle school system in Avon, Ind.
She elected to try volleyball, too, but having no background in the sport, she was cut.
Now the head volleyball coach at
Ben Davis (Indianapolis), Carl Lucas told MaxPreps, "It was the middle school's serious error in my judgment by not accepting her on the team. She was tall and athletic, but just didn't have the experience."
Getting cut didn't keep Cuttino from trying out again as a freshman when her family moved into the Ben Davis school district. Ben Davis is the largest school in Indiana with 4,099 students in grades 9-12.
See our special Danielle Cuttino photo galleryShe made the freshman volleyball team, calling herself "a good blocker, but I didn't really know how to play." She had a much bigger impact on the JV basketball team by posting single-game highs of 30 points and 15 rebounds.
The next year Lucas moved from JV coach at Avon to head coach at Ben Davis, his alma mater, and Cuttino's future in volleyball was secured. And what a future it has become. Cuttino was just named to the USA Volleyball Youth National Team, which is competing this week at FIVB U-18 World Championships in Thailand.
And to top it all off, she carries a 4.2 GPA with many weighted classes.
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