Taylor McQuillin is a 16-year-old junior softball player at Mission Viejo (Calif.) High who recently committed to the Univ. of Arizona.
One of the top pitchers in the 2015 class, she’s a standout student with a 4.2 GPA at Mission Viejo (Calif.) High School where she earned 1st team All-Orange County honors this past spring.
Perhaps Taylor’s greatest accomplishment is she has done all this despite having to overcome birth defects making her completely blind in the left eye and with only partial hearing on the left side.
Here is her latest blog for Student Sports Softball… today, she writes about overcoming adversity, which for her has included significant physical and family challenges…
Be sure to check out Taylor’s previous blogs and those of our other standout bloggers!
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One of the hardest things to do in life for anyone is overcoming adversity.
To be able to deal with reality and overcome the struggles in your life is something that you should be proud of. When you are able to tell people that you have dealt with harsher realities and you got through it, it shows how strong you can be.
For me I had to overcome adversity for my whole life but as I get older, I have learned to work with that I have.
I was diagnosed with Duane’s syndrome when I was born meaning that I am blind in the left eye. My parents thought that it would be a struggle for me to be able to play sports or any type of physical activity that involved hand-eye coordination. I wanted to show them that I was capable of playing a sport just like other kids did.
I have always lived my whole life with “one eye” so I have never truly known what it was like to live being able to see out of two so for me this it feels normal.
Luckily for me I am left-handed so batting was not really a problem for me tracking the ball wise and when I started pitching I had already been playing softball for two years so my hand-eye coordination was improving everyday.
Before softball my parents put me in tae kwon do classes and dance for many years and that helped me as well. Each time I learned something new it was a challenge but to me it was always something that I could do to prove people wrong; to show people that I could do what they thought I couldn’t.
Besides the fact that I could never see my life without softball, that is why I play. I play to show people that anything is possible if you try.
Another thing I have overcome recently is my father’s illness. Last March was a rough month for my family and me but we got through it and we are living the best way that we can.
My father is not able to go to a ton of my games anymore but he still comes when he can and that I all I could ask for. He also was unable to attend my visits to colleges this past summer as well so having to explain everything with as much detail as possible was a bit of a struggle but we managed the best we could.
In the end, I know that he always backs me in my decisions and he just wants what is best for me and that is how I deal with the reality that has been given to my family. I want to do well for him as well as show him that I am capable of being the type of person that he raised me to be.
As an athlete, I have also faced adversity on the field. When I am having an off day, I have to work with that I can do on that day and have to try to make myself better.
Each bad day is a learning experience and it makes me work harder than before. Overcoming a bad day by working harder and not giving up is what you need to do in order to become stronger. That is overcoming adversity.
You have to struggle through the bad days in order to get to the good ones. That is life. Life is a world full of good and bad days but that is what makes each person different.
Each person has to show how they deal with the worst to get to the best and the people who overcoming the adversity will be the ones shining at the top.
— Taylor McQuillin