The whistle blew, and the whole gym went silent for half a second. You remember it — the smell of floor wax and sweat, the net hanging perfectly still, your heart hammering under a jersey that was already soaked through. Back in 2008, you were a volleyball player, not a single thought wasted on board meetings or quarterly earnings. Today you're a CFO. And if you're a former volleyball player who is now a professional, you already know: the girl on that court never really left.
She's still in your office, actually. Folded in a drawer, or framed on the wall next to the degree you worked so hard for. The jersey from 2008 sits there while you run meetings and approve budgets — proof of the player you were long before anyone handed you an executive title.
The Final Point You Can Still Feel
Every volleyball player has one moment she can replay like a video. Maybe it was a playoff game with the season on the line. Maybe it was a Tuesday night in some rival's gym, a crowd that wanted you to lose and a fifth set that wouldn't end.
The serve went up. The pass came in clean. The set floated — and for one heartbeat, the entire match hung on your arm.
You can still feel your palm on the ball. The sting of the hit. The way your teammates collapsed around you when it landed in bounds, fourteen voices screaming your name in the same breath.
That's the thing nobody warns you about when you become a professional. A career gives you wins, sure — a promotion, a closed deal, a forecast you nailed. But it rarely gives you the kind of win you felt at seventeen, when the final point landed and the whole gym erupted. There's no line on a P&L for that feeling. No bonus tied to it. It's just yours, and it always will be.
The sport has grown into something massive since you played — women's volleyball now fills arenas and draws record crowds — but that's not why the memory holds. It holds because you were in the middle of it, and you earned every point.
Sisterhood Is a Language That Doesn't Fade
Here's what a spreadsheet can't measure: the way a team bonds when it's down two sets and fighting back.
You remember the tournament weekends. The cramped hotel rooms where four of you shared two beds and somebody always forgot her socks. The team dinners at chain restaurants where you all ordered the same thing because that's just what you did. The pre-game rituals — the matching hair bows, the handshake you did with your libero before every single serve, the song someone always played too loud on the bus ride home.
You proved yourself to those girls. Not with a résumé or a title, but with your body and your nerve. You dove for balls that hurt. You called the shots in a tight fifth set. You learned how to lead when your voice was the only calm one left in the huddle.
Being a CFO asks a lot of you. Sisterhood asks something simpler — that you show up for the people next to you. And you did. Every single match.
What the Jersey Still Says About You
So why does the jersey sit in your office? You've earned a lot of things since 2008. That jersey is different.
It isn't a trophy. It's a reminder. It says: you were a leader before anyone gave you a title. It says: you know how to fight back from 0-2. It says: you belonged to something bigger than yourself, and you still do.
For a former volleyball player who has become an adult professional, that jersey does quiet, honest work. On the days the board meeting runs long, or the numbers don't land the way you planned, it's still there. Same number. Same colors. It doesn't care about your title. It only asks if you remember who you were when you first put it on.
Most people keep their past in a box in the attic. You kept yours where you can see it. That says something about you — and it's worth naming out loud.
Bring Her Back — Not to the Past, but to the Wall
Here's the part that surprises people: you can still hold that version of yourself close.
Not the same jersey, of course — that one is retired, and it should be. But you can bring that feeling forward. Imagine a jersey with your name and your number, in your colors, made for the adult you are now. Not something mass-produced. Something custom — yours in the way only a keepsake can be, with colors that never crack, peel, or fade, so it stays as sharp as the memory it carries.
You don't have to be seventeen again to keep that part of your story alive. You just have to decide it's worth holding onto. And if the jersey in your office has been proof of who you were, this one can be proof of who you still are — a former volleyball player who grew into a professional without ever leaving the court behind.
She Never Left
The jersey in your office isn't a piece of old gear. It's a statement. It says the CFO was once the girl who dug a ball off the floor with her knee pads slipping and the gym roaring — and that girl is still in the room during every tough conversation you have today.
You earned your number. You earned your career. You get to keep both.
That version of you — the one who read the set, timed the jump, and swung with everything she had — is still worth celebrating. Design a jersey that brings her back with your name, your number, and your colors. Or see what a volleyball jersey can look like and give yourself permission to remember out loud.
Your name. Your number. Your story. Some things are worth wearing again.