Senior Tayler Staples commits to Indiana Institute of Technology for volleyball after many years of hard work,  dedication to the sport and academics.

Tayler Staples was the only senior on her Whitmer varsity volleyball team in the 2023 season, and she also plays travel volleyball for the Premier League. In addition to her volleyball pursuits, she is the vice president of math honorary, member of the National Honor Society and National Technical Honor Society, a panther commander, and an engineering CTC program ambassador.

Tayler is involved in everything at Whitmer, but her greatest love is volleyball.

“I love all my clubs, honestly, and I love volleyball. I’ve played it forever; and I just love it so much,” Staples expresses.

Tayler Staples started playing volleyball in second grade for the YMCA. She started playing travel volleyball in seventh grade and has not stopped since then. This intensity and passion for volleyball caught the eye of Indiana Tech.

“The coach reached out to me about possibly having a spot on the team and getting a scholarship there. And I knew it was something I wanted to do because I loved the school already, and getting paid to do something I love there is really the dream,” Staples explains.

Tayler had already applied and gotten accepted into Indiana Tech for engineering before she heard about the volleyball opportunity. When she was taking a tour of the campus, the school expressed their interest in her volleyball skills.

“I fell in love with everything there. That day, I just decided to commit because it was my dream,” Staples says.

Tayler would say that she has reached her life-long dream. She feels proud to know her hard work over the years has paid off.

“I would say that I have reached success because the ultimate goal of playing sports at the level that I have is to commit to a school and find a place where you really belong. So I would say I accomplished that goal,” Staples mentions.

Along with scoring a dream commitment, Tayler Staples has achieved a few awards throughout her years at Whitmer as well.

“I got senior all-district academic award, and sophomore and junior year I got honorable mention all TRAC, so that’s cool,” Staples shares.

While she succeeds outside the classroom, she also does well in school.

“My counselor nominated me for a CTC award, so one student out of the school is chosen for a CTC award, and she said it’s because I’m involved, and I’m in a CTC program, and I represent the CTC program well. I really felt good about that,” Tayler describes.

Tayler Staples remains happy about the present, but bursts with excitement about her future at Indiana Tech.

“I am just super excited to know what my future is going to be like and getting to achieve it, and I’m so thankful for everyone at Whitmer for allowing me to do this and for supporting me all along the way,” Staples concludes.