Senior volleyball player does it all, plans to teach

Isabella Martello, senior, is co-captain and right side for central’s Varsity volleyball team and president of the O-Club. She plans to go to college with a major in secondary education with the intent to become a high school teacher in anything but math. She hasn’t decided if she wants to play volleyball in college or not but she definitely considers it to be one of her biggest passions.

Martello has always been very close with her grandparents. “My grandparents [have been influential in my life] because they emigrated from Sicily. They worked really hard to send my dad and my aunt and my uncle to college and my grandpa talked to me about college and told ‘I worked really hard to send [my kids] to college’ and so now, since I’m going to college, he’s told me that I have to work really hard.”

The work ethic her grandparents instilled in her have most definitely been transferred over into her dedication to the volleyball team and O-Club.

O-Club is for juniors and seniors who have two varsity letters, one in a sport, and have a minimum 3.0 GPA who want to become involved in their community. Martello speaks fondly of the Siena-Francis house, a volunteer activity the club did last year. This year, the club hasn’t done any service activities but they plan to do a Heartland Hope Mission in November. Additionally, around Christmas time, the club hands out bags of food and toys and books for less fortunate children.

Martello said that becoming president of the O-Club has impacted her in a way that she “interact[s] with more people and see[s] more things.” Also, it has brought her out of her shell. She describes herself as being extremely shy freshman and sophomore year, but become more involved in the school community has allowed her to branch out.

An influential event for Martello has been Leap for a Cure. The volleyball team has been sponsoring a child with cancer who came to their game against Westside High School on October 8. Martello has been playing volleyball since the third grade. She has played on Varsity for four consecutive years. “[I] sat the bench my first two years, which made me better because I tried harder [since] I wanted to start.”

In regards to the Varsity team, Martello says, “I think we work pretty well together. We all get along and if we do have an issue, then we talk about it and we work through it.”

Martello’s advice to anybody struggling with themselves is to be an individual and challenge your limits. “It’s kind of cliché, but go be yourself…Get involved. It’s a lot of work, but it pays off,” she says.