By Kyle Nguyen
Senior Anton Pham has been playing sports for all of his life. Although he has tried many, he has always stuck to basketball and volleyball, which eventually led him to play on the Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) varsity volleyball team his sophomore to senior year.
Pham went from taking sports casually in elementary to competitively in middle school. Later on in high school, he began to value sports even more than what he did in middle school and because of that, he always kept going. That determination from when he was a kid carried on into his high school career.
“I just started out playing basketball like most kids in the L[os] A[ngeles] area because of Kobe [Bryant],” Pham said. “Since then I’ve never really stopped.”
Even though he has played basketball longer than volleyball, he eventually fell in love with volleyball with the same amount of passion as basketball.
“I started [volleyball] in middle school because of a teacher and a couple of friends,” he said. “Even when I left middle school, volleyball was still super fun and I didn’t want to stop.”
He may be a great player as of now but it wasn’t always that way for Pham. He didn’t start on the varsity team, but kept practicing and playing until eventually reaching his current position. By then, he had already passed over the many hardships he had in his early career.
“When I started out, I couldn’t even serve, let alone spike the ball,” Pham said. “I kept slipping and falling and it sucked, but when I was able to spike the ball, I couldn’t believe it.”
Even though Pham made his way to the varsity team, he still stays grounded and humble.
“[My teammates are] great, I couldn’t play without a single one of them,” he said. “Even if they didn’t play great, it doesn’t matter, we’re all players trying to win in the end.”
With three years playing sports for the FVHS volleyball varsity team, Pham will be leaving for Cal State Long Beach to pursue accounting and he hasn’t decided yet whether he wants to play for the school or not.
“I don’t really know if I’m going to play sports for college yet,” Pham said. “I just want to relax a little and see what college life is like.”
Although he may be leaving, his hardwork and determination for the sport will always leave an impact by spreading the rest of that fiery passion to the rest of the team and show that if you keep on going, things will get easier.
Pham before leaving has one piece of advice for his younger teammates on his team and anyone struggling to follow their passion.
“Keep going and don’t stop,” he said. “Don’t beat yourself up if you ain’t doing so well. Just do the best you can and give 100%. That’s all you can ask of yourself.”
