Waynesboro hall-of-famer Rilinger to talk about handling failure as part of seminar Saturday
WAYNESBORO — Holly Rilinger believes social media can give a false image of success to many athletes. Photos sometimes make it seem like a basketball player or soccer star had overnight success when that's far from the truth.
"If you look at the timeline of most successful people it is riddled with failure, myself included," said Rilinger, a former standout basketball player at both Waynesboro High School and James Madison University.
She is now an internationally known health and fitness coach, but she's been through plenty of dark times and struggles on her way to success. She's learned from those difficulties and wants to help other women do the same.
On Saturday, Rilinger will be taking part virtually in the "Inspiring the Future" seminar being held at Waynesboro High School. The event was organized by Skylar Napier, once a high school athlete and now a coach. Napier knows how important it is to be prepared both physically and mentally, not only while playing, but for life after high school and sports. That's why she's having speakers like Rilinger talk to female athletes in the free seminar.
"I believe as coaches we should be teaching our young (athletes) more than just the importance of the sport," said Napier, the Waynesboro High School girls basketball coach.
The seminar is Saturday at 5 p.m. in the high school auditorium. It's the second-annual event organized by Napier. Rilinger's presentation will be "Expect failure: How to turn failure into your greatest teacher."
Other speakers at the event will be Lenise Mazyck, Jemise Diggs and Taylor Sandidge. All three of those speakers will be presenting in person.
Mazyck is a James Madison University and University of South Carolina graduate and owner of Roots to Results Counseling in Henrico. She will be talking about the importance of mental health for teenage girls and their families. She will be discussing what their life is like on a day-to-day basis and some of what she called the hidden things they don't usually get to talk about.
"Like wanting to be the best performer or wanting to achieve more than anybody else," Mazyck said. "Wanting to not let their families down and just be all-around good people. I have found over the course of the work I've done that's what teenagers are concerned about the absolute most."
Mazyck said families can sometime put too much pressure on teenagers who then feel the need to live up to those expectations.
"It's my job to say, let's rearrange the benchmark and create your own," she said. "That's essentially what I want to do Saturday, help people understand the love you have for yourself far exceeds any benchmark you could ever meet."
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She also will talk to the parents about understanding how they may be unknowingly projecting on their children because they want everyone to have a good life. Even best intentions of parents sometimes creates too much pressure.
Napier said these are lessons she could have used when she was a teenage athlete. When she was younger, much of this pressure was channeled into either anger or working harder.
"If we could put that into something else that would be beneficial," Napier said. "Not only to themselves, but everyone around them."
For more information email Napier at snapier@waynesboro.k12.va.us.
Patrick Hite is The News Leader's education reporter. Story ideas and tips always welcome. Contact Patrick (he/him/his) at phite@newsleader.com and follow him on Twitter @Patrick_Hite. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com
This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Waynesboro coach works to help female athletes mentally, physically
