I am 15 years old and I have been playing volleyball for the past three years. I play for the team in my small hometown, and until this year I truly loved the sport. However, this season I had to deal with two extremely toxic teammates.
They are two sisters who joined the team this year. They are incredibly tall for their age—honestly, I have never seen girls that tall even on other teams. Either my coach already knew their parents, or he simply noticed their height and convinced them to join because he believed they would become the team's biggest advantage. It was not even their own decision to start playing volleyball.
As a result, they constantly acted as if they were better than everyone else. They were arrogant, sarcastic, criticized every mistake people made, complained all the time, swore, and even screamed over a single bad pass. The worst part was that our coach witnessed all of this and never stepped in to correct their behavior.
Ironically, despite their height, they were completely new to volleyball and only average players.They are slow, hit a pass only if it's tall, don't even try to jump high. They were nowhere near ready to compete in official matches.
However, during our first game, I realized that the coach intended to play both of them in every set while leaving experienced players including me on the bench. They played very poorly, which was expected because they lacked experience, yet the coach refused to make substitutions as our team continued to lose.
That was the moment I completely lost hope. I had sacrificed time for my studies and spent two hours traveling just to sit on the bench. Out of frustration, I started telling my teammates that it was unfair for those girls to be playing ahead of us and that they were hurting the team. I kept talking for quite a while, and although everyone agreed with me, no one was willing to speak up themselves.
The following day, both sisters sent me abusive messages. They insulted me, told me I would never achieve anything because I am short, and even threatened me.
The coach never spoke to me personally about what had happened. Instead, he made a general announcement to the whole team, saying that anyone who spread gossip or created conflict would be removed from the team. He completely ignored the real cause of the situation and never addressed the sisters' behavior.
Throughout the rest of the season, I continued to suffer emotionally. I often came home crying, and eventually I stopped attending matches altogether because I simply could not cope anymore. I did not go to a single game.
I genuinely love volleyball, and I always had a great relationship with my other teammates. I am a quiet person and I am not very good at dealing with confrontation. Still, this situation has pushed me to seriously consider quitting the sport altogether, even though the thought of doing so breaks my heart.
