Emma Gerstner would sit in her parked car outside of Scottsdale Chaparral High School for a long time, trying to convince herself to get out and go into the gym.

She would cry at the thought of returning to the volleyball court after the Scottsdale Unified School District said it was OK for athletes to return to campus to work out with their teams this summer.

The COVID-19 shutdown that began in March had been lifted , but the 5-foot-10 junior middle blocker wasn’t ready to return to the sport she passionately played since she was 8.

 “I tried to convince my parents to not let me do it,” she said. “I was so conflicted.

“I was crying a lot before volleyball. It was not something I wanted to do.”

She called Chad Speer, her high school and club coach,  who told her that it would get better than just sitting at home.

In the beginning, however, it was tough. Knotted up with fear and anxiety would cause her stomach to churn. The first day of practice, she was shaking and crying as she signed in.

“She was like, ‘I can’t do this,’ ” said Speer, who also coaches Livewire, a top club program in the Valley. “She was like, ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone or kill anyone like with COVID, like  my grandparents.’

“I was like, ‘It’ going to be OK. This is a good place for you. It’s going to get you out of the house. It’s going to get you moving. It’s going to get your mind somewhere else.’ It was very evident that it was anxiety to me.”

A step back helped

While many kids have found sports amid the pandemic to be the panacea, Gerstner, 16, felt severe anxiety at the thought of returning to playing volleyball.

She lives in a large household with four other siblings and her parents. She is close to her grandparents who are both vulnerable. Her grandmother has Alzheimer’s and her grandfather has a preexisting lung ailment. They live in an independent living community and are safe with her grandfather working hard to take care of Emma’s grandmother.

The family is close and likes to be able to help the grandparents meals and personal needs.

“We were really quarantined, because they have a elderly grandparents, and they really wanted to spend time with them,” said Laurie Cohen, Emma’s mom.

“We had our own pod. When she got back to volleyball (in the summer), it was like someone flipped a switch and she had pretty intense anxiety and she dreaded going. She would cry. She really didn’t want to go. It was really challenging for us,” added Cohen, who was concerned her daughter’s condition could worsen.

“We wanted to do what was comfortable but what was best for her long term, her mental health.  I wanted her to be able to look back at this experience when she had other challenges  in her life that felt insurmountable, and be able to say, ‘I didn’t get down. I played through it. I got better.'”

It was affecting her play when the season started, causing Speer to demote Gerstner to junior varsity. It was a bruise to the ego for a girl who had only played in varsity games since she was a freshman at Chaparral.

After a JV appearance against Phoenix Xavier Prep, Gertsner returned to varsity.

“She dropped from being at the highest level of club to a JV level,” Speer said. “But I give her props for sticking with it, letting me put her on JV to work her way through it. She didn’t fight it. She had a good attitude about it. She’s starting in the middle on varsity now.”

It was a way of settling her down and getting her back to the level of play she was accustomed to.

“I think it was more about not wanting to play at all,” Cohen said. “Not because it was JV. But that was like the final nail in the coffin. I’m glad Chad didn’t let her walk away from it.”

Happy to be back

Since then, Gerstner has embraced life better. She has been able to open up to a teammate, who understood her angst.

She has been a force at the net.

“She didn’t have the feeling to be super open about it,” Cohen said. “One of the girls, when she confided in her, she said, ‘I totally get it.’

“It feels like everyone on social medial spends lot of time in life to try to make it look like they’ve got it all together and perfect. It’s a surface presentation. When you reveal your vulnerabilities, others feel they can share those experiences.”

Emma didn’t see a counselor, but she met with a doctor who helped her, she said.

She said her family has been supportive, great to talk to through everything. Even now.

“My mom was very tough with me,” she said. “She didn’t want me to quit at all. Neither did my dad. They really helped me to get back into it. She pushed me to come and to have fun.”

Emma is having fun and thriving. Her grandparents have been supportive of whatever she wanted to do to make her happy.

“I’m happy to be on the court,” she said. “My mom always told me, ‘Even if you’re feeling this anxiety, know that you love it and you’ve loved it for so long.’ She said, ‘It’s going to go away. You’re going to start loving it again.’ And that was probably the best advice I could have gotten.”

To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at [email protected] or 602-316-8827. Follow him on Twitter @azc_obert.

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