Andrew Montana is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Apollo High School for AZPreps365. 

GLENDALE -- When you first meet her, Apollo High School sophomore libero Tia Curtis and her affectionate personality shine like a diamond, one that cannot be formed without pressure.

Curtis is a Navajo Native American who is learning to balance ancestry with modernity.

“She is full-blooded Navajo,” Curtis’s mom, Trisha Small, said. “But since she didn’t really grow up on the reservation, she doesn’t have much knowledge of the traditions because she was raised differently here in the city.”

Additionally, Curtis remains a very sharp student as great grades and reports have opened many doors for her. 

“She wants to go into the medical field,” Small said. “She does have some options, but the medical field is what her eyes are set on.”

“I actually started getting into medicine because I watched “Grey’s Anatomy”,” Curtis said. “I got so interested in body parts and it hooked me to the idea of studying medicine.”

While Curtis is very forward-looking, she still capitalizes on her youth by playing volleyball and, with mom’s guidance, Curtis has become the teammate many gravitate toward.

“Some people have ‘it’,” Hawks coach Chris Biesbrouck said. “And whatever ‘it’ is, it’s hard to define. But with everything about her, Tia has ‘it’.” 

‘It’ might be Curtis’ infectious smile that makes her teammates root for her without prompt.

“She’s always very happy and very fun,” junior middle blocker Brooklyn Whitson said. “And she’s never down in the dumps because she always has a good attitude.”

‘It’ could also refer to Curtis’ admirability in Apollo High’s hallways, which does not budge when she laces up her pink “Sabrina 1” shoes before stepping onto the hardwood.

“Her demeanor is pretty much the same on the court as it is off the court,” Biesbrouck said. “She brings joy to people around her and there are very few people in this world that have because of the positivity coming out of her.”

Across the entire Hawks varsity roster, Curtis is the youngest player. She splits her match days between the junior varsity and the varsity teams, starting as libero for both squads.

“That kid gets better every day,” Biesbrouck said. “But what I learned with her really quickly is the more that I challenge her, the more she responds to it. She has surpassed my expectations this year and there is really no ceiling for her.”

Despite her youth on the varsity roster, Curtis looks to put ‘it’ to good use, positioning herself as a leader of the offense and of the mind.

“I feel like I am a leader mostly when somebody gets in their heads,” Curtis said. “If one of the girls makes a mistake and gets in her head, I try to cheer her up and remind her to focus and move onto the next ball.”

As she reminds her teammates and friends to keep their chins up in moments of struggle, Curtis sometimes forgets to do so for herself.

“She tells me she gets in her head a lot of times,” Small said. “Once she realizes it, though, she starts to make improvements.”

When Curtis is at home, she spends most of her time improving as a libero by sitting down and looking at a screen. This non-physical method of training is where “it” transforms Curtis from a player of the game to a student of her craft.

“She watches replays from her recent games,” Small said. “I think 80% of her practice time is spent watching film. She knows where her mistakes are and she knows to run faster or hustle more, plus with this Arizona heat, it’s hard to stay outside.”

Not including volleyball, Small and Curtis spend a lot of quality time together at home, strengthening the mother-daughter relationship more with every passing day.

“I really do love my mom. She is like my best friend,” Curtis said. “I can tell her anything and she won’t tell anybody, well sometimes.”

While most of those conversations are typical mother-daughter talks, one of them would tip the emotional scale of any mother, but maybe even more so for Small. 

Curtis is Small’s only child. So when Curtis expressed her commitment to volleyball and wherever “it” took her, Small found that emotional scale with two bricks on either side.  

“I told her that I wanted to go to Penn State,” Curtis said. “She wanted me to go to the Arizona Wildcats.”

“That’s my baby,” Small said as tears formed in her eyes.

“Sometimes I kind of want to stay in Arizona,” Curtis said. “But there are opportunities that I could miss.”

 “To be honest, I would be devastated if she was far from me because it has always just been me and her,” Small said.

“If I get a scholarship somewhere outside of Arizona, I know it would be heartbreaking,” Curtis said. “But it’s also going to be such a great opportunity. It would also be so sad for me because I would be leaving the rest of my family, too.”

“But at the same time I would be so proud of her to see her fulfill her goals and dreams,” Small said.

Curtis still has two and a half years to make a decision. As she figures out exactly what “it” is, the libero has plenty of opportunities for the future, one of the best and heaviest realizations the mother of one can face.

Small’s message to Curtis as the real world inevitably approaches is simple: “If you see what people can see, how mighty you are, you can do anything.”