Nick Worrell’s athletic career might be over.
Here he is, just a few weeks after helping Saddleback Valley Christian to a CIF-SS volleyball championship. He was league player of the year in volleyball, and basketball, too, and All-CIF in basketball.
Worrell, a 6-foot-5 senior who is the Orange County Register’s small schools athlete of the year for the 2012-13 school year, just might be done with sports.
It’s not an injury that would place competitive athletics permanently in Worrell’s past.
He senses a calling that could place him on a different path.
“I’d love to explore ministry and music and leadership opportunities,” Worrell said. “I love sports so much, and with passion, too, so it’s tricky to make a choice. It’s all in God’s hands.”
If Worrell does stick with sports, it would be in volleyball. He will be at Cal Baptist in Riverside this fall.
“I’m trying to decide if I want to pursue it,” he said. “I want to know if that’s going to be my community.”
So far, Worrell has been a leader in every community to which he has belonged. He is ASB president at Saddleback Valley Christian. He was homecoming king and takes leadership roles in Bible study.
Worrell has made several trips to Mexico to perform missionary work and recently returned from a trip to Venezuela where he assisted in housing projects.
He sees his athletic abilities as gifts. But he does allow himself a moment of pride — being part of the school’s first CIF team championship. The Warriors won the CIF Division 5 boys volleyball title last month.
“I can’t wait to put on that CIF ring and show it around,” Worrell said. “I’ll always have such a good memory of winning it with a special group of guys.”
SVC basketball coach Tom Lewis is sad to see Worrell leave a team that Worrell — averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds per game — led to a 24-7 overall record.
“I wish I had 10 guys on the team like Nick,” said Lewis, himself a CIF player of the year in the 1980s at Mater Dei. “Any task you give him, you don’t have to monitor him because you know he will always give it 100 percent.”
Worrell’s music pursuits have him playing drums in a band with younger brother Brody.
The name of the band is Falling Forward.
Worrell isn’t falling, but he is going forward. He just doesn’t yet know in which direction.
