West Central Valley Volleyball Head Coach Jami Schmitz details vital life skills that she passes on to her players.

Schmitz points out that one commonality revolves around communication itself. She mentions that most jobs require interaction between co-workers and that you’re not going to get along with every single person, but you have to find a way to navigate around it in order to complete the task at hand. Another area that Schmitz highlights is mental toughness.

“Being able to move past mistakes and understand that you are going to mess up in life (and) you are going to mess up in school. There’s going to be mistakes, but what are you going to do to come back from that, what do you do to make yourself better?”

Schmitz believes that the girls learning these skills now will prepare them for the real world after high school. The Wildcats begin the 2026 volleyball regular season on August 25th in Madrid.