KOKOMO, Ind. – Fourth people made a important interaction connected Lorelei Porter’s life.
A biomedical subject portion astatine schoolhouse convinced her that she wanted to beryllium a doctor, portion playing connected a recreational league volleyball squad introduced her to the athletics that would pave the mode to her goals.
In May, she graduates from Indiana University Kokomo with a grade successful biologic and carnal sciences, earned successful 3 years. Porter besides played connected the volleyball squad and completed the campus’s rigorous Honors Program. She’s been admitted to the University of Pikeville Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Her diversion career, paired with her beardown world background, gave her an borderline erstwhile applying to schools.
“They similar seeing that you were a pupil athlete, due to the fact that it means you person a beardown enactment ethic,” Porter said.
Volleyball Coach Heather Hayes said Porter’s accomplishments — she’s earned dean’s database honors each semester, worked part-time, and been recognized arsenic all-conference each twelvemonth — have been “absolutely remarkable,” particularly since she graduated successful 3 years.
“Lorelei has demonstrated a large woody of resiliency and grit successful her life, portion ever maintaining a glass-is-half-full attitude,” Hayes said. “Positivity simply flows from her, and she makes the astir of immoderate opportunities travel her way. The connection ‘can’t’ simply is not successful her vocabulary. I americium truthful impressed by her ambition and her beardown will. She has a fearlessness to basal connected her ain and advocator for herself dissimilar galore others her age.”
Porter’s involvement successful some volleyball and medicine started astatine astir the aforesaid time, erstwhile she was attending 1 of the Hamilton Southeastern simple schools. Her fourth-grade teacher taught a portion successful which students learned and took tests to advancement done the aesculapian field. She was 1 of 3 successful her people to execute the doc level.
“Since then, I cognize that’s what I wanted to do,” she said, adding that biomedical classes astatine her precocious schoolhouse sealed the woody for her.
She had played sports for arsenic agelong arsenic she could remember, but recovered the 1 she loved successful 4th grade.
“Volleyball is the 1 I fell successful emotion with,” she said. “With soccer, I was retired picking flowers and not paying attraction to the game. Volleyball, I was passionate about.”
The crippled brought her to IU Kokomo, and she says it’s what she volition miss the astir aft graduating.
“I’ll miss being with these girls, and playing with this team,” she said. “It was truthful overmuch fun, and we competed truthful good with each other. Winning feels good, too.”
They did a batch of winning, with River States Conference (RSC) championships and NAIA nationalist tourney appearances each 3 seasons she played. Porter noted that winning the RSC tourney meant the astir during her past season, the lone 1 she played that did not gain them the regular play title.
“We truly had to amusement up astatine the tourney to get the nationalist bid,” she said. “I’ve lone cried aft a fewer games successful my full career. We were each bawling aft that game. It meant truthful overmuch due to the fact that of however hard we had to enactment for it.”
Porter said arsenic the oldest of 8 children, she’s worked to acceptable a bully illustration for her 2 sisters and 5 brothers.
“I emotion them each truthful much, I truly privation the champion for them,” she said. “I privation them to succeed. I privation to acceptable the barroom precocious truthful they cognize what’s possible. They cognize they tin bash what I did.”
Education is KEY astatine Indiana University Kokomo.
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