Rittman High's Andrea Vale has earned the respect of her teammates and coach since she first set foot on the pitch as a freshman. The three-year captain has played a huge role in her team's growth into a winning squad.
Courtesy photo
learned a lot in her first season as a freshman starting on the
Rittman (Ohio) girls soccer team.
When Vale entered her sophomore campaign, she had all the respect of her teammates and they voted her as a team captain. She's been a captain ever since.
That, in a nutshell, is Vale. She's an athlete who garners the utmost respect from her fellow competitors.
"She's a natural born leader," said Rittman soccer coach Brian Sugerman, who coached Vale all four years. "She's the first and maybe only kid who will come through my program as a three-year captain voted on by her teammates. And I had a strong senior class her sophomore year and the team selected her as a captain as a sophomore, so I think right there that kind of speaks to the type of kid she is."
Vale recently closed out her soccer career, and was honored to be named captain three times.
"That means a lot to me because I know that my teammates are looking up to me for leadership and guidance and I think it makes me a better player and a better teammate knowing that," Vale said.
Vale is known for her defense in basketball.
Courtesy photo
Vale, who has been playing soccer since she was 8, isn't very outspoken. She leads by how she plays on the field as a center back on the defense.
"She really exemplifies a leader in the way she practices, the way she prepares for a game," Sugerman said. "The way she does that, she's always willing to work, she asks questions about game planning, she ask questions on how she can help and all that. If she doesn't understand something, she wants to get to know it. Outside of soccer, the girl has the highest GPA in her grade level. She volunteers her time, she's coached our youth program. Probably one of the most well-rounded kids you'll come across."
During Vale's four years on the soccer team, she helped turned the program in a positive direction. The Indians went 0-15-1 when Vale was a junior, but as a senior the team tallied the first winning season in the program's seven-year existence, going 9-8-1. Sugerman said Vale played a huge role in capturing an above-.500 year.
"I think for her it's, ‘I want to leave this program with a legacy,'" Sugerman said. "She will never say that. She will never come out and say, ‘I want to be remembered.' I think just in her actions, that is what I saw. She wanted to leave this program a lot better than she had ever found it."
The 17-year-old is a three-sport athlete at her small, rural school. She's a basketball player in the winter and come spring, Vale is a distance runner on the track and field team.
Vale is in her third season on the basketball team and earned valuable minutes last season as a backup guard. This season, she is looking to be one of the first two players off the bench and contribute, mostly as a lock-down defender.
In track, Vale primarily competes in the 4x800 relay and 3,200 meters. She's a distance runner since endurance is also key in soccer.
"Sprinting's not really up my alley," Vale joked.
She will graduate from Rittman in the spring and is on pace to leave with 11 varsity letters. It's important for her to be well-rounded as an athlete, she said.
"With being such a small school, we need people to come out for sports, and I think that's how I got into being a three-sport athlete instead of just playing soccer year-round," Vale said. "And I also think it develops you more, because different sports require different things physically and mentally."
Vale specializes in distance events in track.
Courtesy photo
Vale isn't just a leader as an athlete, she's proven herself in the classroom.
She is No. 1 in her class of 85 students and is on track to be the valedictorian. She scored 1,480 on her SAT test and decided to retake it to see if she could improve her already solid mark. When Vale took the ACT test, she tallied a 35 – one off from a perfect score of 36.
"It's kind of like, ‘Oh, I wish I would have got 36.' But at the same time I'm really happy with 35, it's a good score," Vale said. "I'm excited about that."
Vale has been involved in many activities over the years at Rittman. She is in her second year in the National Honor Society and is currently the president. As a freshman, Vale was named her class president. The last three years, she's been a student council representative, and helped organize activities such as homecoming and winter formal.
She also volunteers during school hours with Red Cross blood drives and Easter Seals events.
With very little spare time, Vale still finds opportunities to volunteer away from school. Last summer, she started helping out at the Medina County SPCA, a local animal shelter. She helps feeds the cats, makes sure cages are clean and plays with the animals.
"I think it's good because I'm meeting new people that way and I'm holding different roles than I do day to day," Vale said. "I've always liked caring for animals. I think it's going to help me decide if I want to go into veterinary medicine later on. It feels good knowing I'm helping the animals out."
Vale expects to graduate with an incredible 11
varsity letters.
Courtesy photo
Vale also spends plenty of time, generally 12 hours a month during the fall, as a volunteer youth soccer coach.
"All the young kids absolutely adore her," Sugerman said. "She just has that personality that's inviting. She brightens up a room when she walks in. With kids, she's able to break down a lot of the skills and a lot of the technique, and she's able to do that to her level, which is hard for a high school kid to be able to do that stuff."
Vale is still weighing her options for college and has only applied to Ohio State University. However, Vanderbilt University is on her short list of schools. Vale isn't sure what kind of profession she'd like to pursue, but veterinary and pharmacy programs are both possibilities.
Vale loves being someone who excels in the classroom as well as an athlete. She's well aware that what she does in school will make a larger impact on her life.
"I'm not planning on playing varsity sports in college, more intramural and stuff like that, so academics is really what's going to get me through college and get a career," she said.
