It’s a little misleading to hear Meredith Ware talk about her schedule nonchalantly.
Senior defensive specialist Meredith Ware was awarded the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Scholarship for her work in evolutionary biology. | Courtesy of UH Athletics
Between being a senior leader on the volleyball team and a long list of extracurricular activities, the defensive specialist has a lot on her plate.
Ware is on the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, involved in Greek life and a member of the Athletic Department’s leadership academy, on top of her academic and team responsibilities.
“My planner is super detailed. I have to block out my time by every 30 minutes so I know exactly what I’m doing. Everything that I’m doing, I really love it,” Ware said.
Ware isn’t intimidated by her new role on the team and credits the four seniors who graduated last season for helping her move up the leadership ladder. She plans to impart wisdom to the team’s promising underclassmen.
“I’m trying to get other people involved to empower them to try and help other people learn how to lead the team. I was given the opportunity by different seniors in the past and so that’s been my job now to train other leaders to step up next year,” Ware said.
Her efforts have been noticed by head coach Kaddie Platt, who is also working toward her second season at the helm.
Platt said Ware is the truest definition of a student athlete who can handle leadership well.
“She’s organized and a great communicator — plans ahead, thinks ahead. She’s a caring person so she knows what to look for.”
Ware’s college goals extend beyond the realm of horizontal nets. She has a niche for science as well. Last year, Ware received the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Scholarship for her work in evolutionary biology under professor Tony Frankino’s research on chemotherapeutics using fruit flies.
“I basically studied how organisms evolve resistance to chemotherapeutics over time,” Ware said. “We looked at how the flies would evolve resistance to the drugs and hopefully that will translate to cancer research.”
Senior defensive specialist Meredith Ware is a leader on the volleyball team. | Courtesy of UH Athletics
Ware plans to go into pediatric oncology, which is research of children and young adults with cancer.
“Cancer has always been a topic that I’ve always been interested in,” Ware said.
Besides teaching communication and organization skills to the underclassmen and preparing them for the Cougars’ first season in the American Athletic Conference, Ware also has also set a few personal goals.
“I want to go into (this season) prepared and confident that I have trained properly, and that (during) this past summer and spring off-seasons, I’ve done everything that I could to perform my best,” Ware said.
“Looking back on it, I want to have no regrets. I want to have played my best and my hardest every single game, every single practice — just knowing that I’ve left it all out on the court.”
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