With junior Tess Olcott laid sprawled across the couch in her Patriots jersey, her feet kicked up, and a football game on her TV, her love for sports appeared undeniable.

Pulling her dog Titus on her lap, Olcott talked about making three consecutive varsity sports teams including tennis, soccer and softball during her freshman year. Her devotion to these teams not only influences her commitment to athletics, but her overall experience throughout high school.

“I made amazing connections with so many kids at the same time that I was playing the sports I love,” Olcott said. “I’m really grateful for that.”

Without years of involvement at a high level of play, tennis coach Corey Reich accredits Olcott’s success on his team to her natural athletic ability.

“She is a very good player, solid fundamentals, but her athleticism is undeniable” Reich said. “She also values sportsmanship and is a joy to have on the team, she knows when to focus and when to let loose.”

Olcott believes it was her positivity and potential that got her on the teams, not necessarily her technical skills in each sport. These varsity teams not only improved her raw abilities, but allowed her to find role models in the older students.

“It was super helpful just having older kids as a guide both socially and academically,” Olcott said, while flipping the channel on her TV. “I think a lot of parents worry about peer pressure from older students, but I never had that experience. The upperclassmen on my team were always extremely accepting and helpful, definitely a positive influence.”

With such a large age gap between athletes on each team, mother Laura Pochop initially felt concerned about Olcott’s amount of time spent with older students.

“There is a protective bubble around your kid when they are a freshman. They spend most of their time with other freshmen and hardly any of them can drive,” Pochop said. “It seemed very abrupt when Tess made all these older friends from the start and there was this huge shift from eighth grade.”

However, Olcott loved both the sense of being on a team and broadening her horizons to other social groups in the school.

“I think it was a great introduction to Piedmont High,” Pochop said. “It allowed her to be very fluid between classes and she now has good friends who are in college as well as freshmen in high school.”

Currently as a junior, Olcott now knows the importance of maintaining bonds with teammates and even takes it upon herself to include all grades.

“She knows how important it is to connect with the freshmen and sophomores on the team and make everyone feel welcome,” Reich said.

Olcott has gained important skills from these varsity teams, both socially and athletically. One important thing she has taken away from the experience of having a schedule constantly filled by sports is how to get all of her work done and still have time for friends and family.

“Academically, I’ve learned to organize my time with my busy schedule,” Olcott said, pausing mid thought to check the score from the game behind her. “The rigorous schedule really helped put me in place and always kept me on track.”

Pochop finds Olcott’s style of commitment to be an “old school” approach to sports, taking them season by season.

“Tess does it like [people] did in my generation,” Pochop laughed as Olcott rolled her eyes, “ I feel like a lot of young athletes pick one sport and do it year round. Because Tess hasn’t done that she is able to spend time with her family and spend time with her friends.”

Without an offseason, Olcott often misses preseason workouts, but she has not noticed a difference in the way she bonds with the team. The hardest transition she continues to face is the shift from tennis (fall season) to soccer (winter season) because of the varying levels of conditioning the different sports require.

Pochop said she loves the dedication sports take, and the balance it creates in so many kids lives. Now, as Olcott gets older, Pochop continues to see that in her daughter.

“There’s so many great things about sports, particularly for girls, where [you can] learn to be part of a team, learn about winning and losing, learn to care really deeply about something and work as hard as you can for it,” Pochop said. “Sometimes you don’t winand you realize it isn’t the end of the world. A balance in sports, as well as in life, is super important.”