A soccer player who made it big. A volleyball blocker turned astrophysicist.
A diligent runner who works in human resources. Three UPrep graduates share their experiences playing team sports—and what it taught them about themselves and their careers.

Passing the Ball

SEATTLE SOUNDERS DEFENDER JACKSON RAGEN '17 SHARES HIS JOURNEY FROM UPREP TO THE MAJOR LEAGUES.

Maybe I had a dream to pursue soccer professionally when I was playing at UPrep. I was on the team from 6th through 11th grade. But I didn’t think it was realistic. I didn’t realize it might be a real possibility until I played with the Sounders Academy my senior year. That August, I was doing all right, but by late winter and spring, I had become one of the better players in my age group. I didn’t see myself like totally standing out, but I thought I could fit in here with some time and with some practice.

Being in that environment and not feeling out of place—that was a big deal. Those moments practicing with minor league players and playing in some of their games made me think playing pro soccer might happen.

I always felt like I belonged on the soccer field with my UPrep teams. In Middle School, playing with my good friends was really fun. I’m still best friends with a few of them. High school is an awkward time for lots of kids. You’re looking for that group of friends. The team provided that, especially as a freshman or sophomore when you’re friends with all the seniors on the team. I have memories from bus rides and winning games together. And losing games together—that builds relationships.

I remember losing the state championship my freshman year and winning on the

road against Overlake sophomore year. That was a big win for our team. During my junior year, I remember the game for third place at state. We had a chance to go to the championship, but we were stuck in the third-place game. It was frustrating for everyone—for the other team and for us. Late in the game, I collected the ball outside the box, cut inside, and drilled a shot to the far post goal. After it went in, I turned and made the bow and arrow pose—pretending to shoot an arrow. The goal and the celebration felt like relief. I hate losing more than I love winning.

I also remember when I had a D in English class at one point during my freshman year at UPrep. That was a wake-up call to focus and put in extra time. It was helpful to have Dux [Alex Duxbury ’86, former UPrep varsity soccer coach and English teacher] as an advisor, as English was not one of my best subjects and he helped me work on my weaknesses. When I meet with younger players, I tell them that you’re going to have so many failures in life, more than successes, and it’s about how you react. I began to learn that at UPrep.

That mindset was helpful when I was cut from the Major League Soccer (MLS) team that had drafted me during my senior year of college. I called Wade Webber, who was then the head coach of the MLS Next Pro side of Tacoma Defiance and had been my coach at the academy. I said, I’m without a team. Can I come play with you while I figure out what to do? I did well enough to be picked up by the team and got called up to the Sounders after that season. I tell younger players that I didn’t think I was going to make it at times, but you gotta just keep believing and persevering. You never know what will happen. Working my way up from the bottom again—it was pretty much the only option.

The Repetition Principle

VOLLEYBALL PLAYER TURNED ASTROPHYSICIST JESSICA WASHINGTON '18 KNOWS THAT SUCCESS—ON THE COURT AND BEYOND—REQUIRES TIME AND EFFORT.

I’ve loved volleyball since the first time I played in 5th grade.

I continued playing all the way through my first years of college, and I’ve realized it taught me far more than just how to play the sport—it taught me about learning.

When playing volleyball, you can explicitly see when what you are doing isn’t working. If I go up for a swing and it hits the net, it’s easy to see something went wrong. It’s also easy to get discouraged by that immediate failure. Though when you are surrounded by the right coaches and players, they help you recognize exactly what went wrong. They’re able to see the way your hand hits the ball, know your contact happened at the wrong point in your swing, and give you pointers on how to approach it better next time.

Eventually, with enough practice, you can feel it. When you take time to drill the skill—repeat it in a controlled environment—you develop muscle memory and learn the difference between what it feels like to do it wrong versus right.

Building this muscle memory undoubtedly takes time, especially when playing at higher levels. There are so many things that need to line up to get a point. The final hit depends on the set before it, which depends on the pass before that. At every contact, the player responsible must deliver. That’s what makes it so tough, but all the more satisfying when it goes right.

I’ve found problem-solving works in a similar way. You often know how you’re

meant to start a physics problem, and maybe even what form the answer should come in. But there are several things that can, and often will, go wrong along the way. When you fail and you’re granted the opportunity to pursue the problem again, you return far better informed by virtue of repetition. I credit my coaches and my UPrep science and math teachers for this problem-solving mentality, which really is a growth mindset. They taught me how to identify where things are wrong and how to ask the right questions, so I can return to the problem stronger. Fundamentally, they helped me understand the point is not to get it right the first time, but to get it right eventually—to commit yourself to taking the time to work at it, using mistakes as opportunities for growth.

This idea came full circle in my classes at Wellesley College, where I majored in astrophysics before pursuing my master’s in physics at Brown. In my first Wellesley physics class, lessons I had learned in my UPrep Calculus class with Mr. Chestnut finally clicked, by virtue of the application of calculus to the relationship between position, velocity, and acceleration. I remember initially struggling with matrices in Statistics class at UPrep with Ms. Howe, but in my Wellesley electricity and magnetism course, once again my understanding clicked at a deeper level.

In both learning and volleyball, I am ultimately motivated by curiosity and fun. This mindset was made possible by passionate educators both in the classroom and on the court, and the classmates and players I worked alongside. When I was a UPrep varsity volleyball player, I remember our coach giving us each a piece of the same ribbon on game day—we’d all wear them tied to our shoes or up in our hair. My UPrep duffle bag still has a bunch of those ribbons tied to it, and they remind me of the importance of team bonding and tradition. We tie-dyed shirts, created playlists for the bus rides, and dressed up for practice on Halloween. No matter how high the stakes were, all I really remember was how much fun I had.

Our team’s joy was contagious. In volleyball, it’s easy to see when something goes wrong, but it’s undeniable when something goes right—you can hear it.
You must maintain a constant conversation on the court, and one of the most important parts of that is celebrating each other’s wins. When it all lined up and someone got a kill at the end of a long play, the sound of the ball slamming on the ground was like no other. We’d erupt into cheers—with the sheer amount of noise we’d make, the crowd couldn’t help but cheer along with us.

The joy I find on volleyball courts is like the joy I find in museums. When I was a kid, I spent hours in museums exploring the world, and learning about astronomy in my local planetarium ultimately led me to physics. My growth mindset and commitment to lifelong learning pushed me to stick with physics, even when difficult. Currently, I’m performing research with a professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington, and in a remarkable full-circle moment, I’m running and developing onsite and virtual programming for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. I’m proud to be part of a team working to show future scientists what museums once showed me—that no matter what discipline, sport, or hobby you choose, you do yourself and others a disservice if you let the need to be perfect stop you from starting at all. If you have a real passion for something, your unique perspective, curiosity, and joy are invaluable.

On the Trail of Discipline

THE LESSONS FROM RUNNING INSPIRE AND INFORM CARACOL HALEY ’14.

It feels silly talking about a major life turning point that occurred in 6th grade, but that’s when my love for running truly began. When I joined the track team in Middle School, I started off doing what most middle schoolers do—sprints. But before the conference championship, my instincts told me to try the 800-meter race. About an hour before my race, my best friend and teammate, Audrey Western ’14, had lost a shoe during a race. Although she still won by a landslide, her foot was hurt badly, and she had to pull out of the 800. She undoubtedly would have won if she’d raced, but with her absence, I was able to pull off a win. That’s when I decided I wanted to be a competitive runner.

My happiest UPrep moments were running with the track and cross country teams, especially with my best friend and my older brother. I was able to run my first two high school track seasons with my brother Jullian Haley ’12, who qualified in sprints for the state championship three years in a row. It was also where I became best friends with Audrey, who set many UPrep records. Audrey and I went to state as individual competitors in track and cross country every season.

While racing at UPrep, the thing I’m most proud of was the range of events in which I found success. I went to state in the 100-, 200-, 400-, 800-, 1,600-, and 5,000-meter races. But the races that made me happiest were the 4 x 400-meter relay races at state my freshman and senior years. Track is traditionally considered an individual sport, and relays are where you feel most like a team. It’s more special than the individual races: I push myself because I’m running for my friends.

I was drawn to running because I liked how much success was based on discipline. I saw runners as hardworking and goal-driven people, and I wanted that to be part of my identity. I wanted academics to be important to me as well, and this seemed possible because of something my 8th grade Math Teacher Dan Chestnut told our class. He said he didn’t believe there’s such a thing as being smart, that it’s all about the effort you put into studying. Mr. Chestnut told us about how some cultures don’t label people as “smart” or “intelligent,” but as hard workers. I loved this and realized that this concept could be applied to academics, athletics, or whatever you want to be successful in.

My athletic journey has reminded me again and again to be patient, and that hard work pays off. Transitioning to running cross country and track and field at Oberlin College, where I studied sociology and rhetoric, was difficult. My training immediately tripled through doubling my mileage and adding cross training and core circuits.

In those first years, I was disappointed because I wasn’t running as well as I expected to. I quickly learned that the self-doubt affected my results: If you tell yourself that you will fail at something, you will. I’ve learned to not only trust but enjoy the process of working hard, and to remember that, for the most part, you get out of something what you put into it.

I credit a lot of my high school running success to my cross country and track and field coach Morgan Leahy. I have a lot of appreciation for how flexible she was with my anxiety. There were many times before races where I would express doubt or break down crying, and she was always in my corner. Morgan made me feel valuable as a human instead of just a body that puts up fast times for the team. When I didn’t believe in myself, having her believe in me meant the world to me. I always wanted to impress her and gain her respect.

Morgan was great at finding little tricks to calm me down. She’s the reason why I was able to make it to state in the 100, 800, and 5K my sophomore year. I was very anxious about racing the 800 since that was my main event, so Morgan cleverly had me race the 100, too. The 100 was about an hour before the 800, so while I was warming up for it, I wasn’t stressing about the 800.

I’m grateful for how UPrep developed my relationship with running. I’ve heard stories about kids who were pushed too hard in high school, then burned out, and stopped running entirely. They fall out of love with it. But I still love running and training. My race anxiety has improved since high school and college, and I’ve found my own tricks to cope with the pressure of racing. I typically try to stay in shape year-round and I sign up for a race a few days before the scheduled event. I haven’t yet done a half marathon or full marathon, but I want to tackle a half before the spring.

Today, I work in human resources at Redfin and have enjoyed that the company has let me move around the department and gain experience in different HR sectors. I’m currently an associate HR business partner, and I help support employees and managers. I love the employee-facing aspect of my role and being able to serve as a resource to those who need me. While my job is now a big part of my life, I always tell people that being a runner is a big part of my identity—and that all started in 6th grade at UPrep.