Thanks to our continued partnership with Univest Financial, SuburbanOneSports.com will once again recognize a male and female featured athlete each week. The recognition is given to seniors of high character who are students in good standing that have made significant contributions to their teams or who have overcome adversity. Selections are based on nominations received from coaches, athletic directors and administrators.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete (Week of Oct. 7, 2024)
Amanda “A.J.” Busk, a versatile senior on the Plymouth Whitemarsh volleyball, is the definition of perseverance. Despite a broken ankle that initially derailed her recruiting process, she was able to land a place with the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Given the fact that we are talking about someone who had her boating license before her driver’s license and who plans to be a private pilot before starting college, this should not come as a surprise. “My dad always wanted to be a pilot, and he never really did it,” said Busk, who is planning on working on her private pilot’s license at Northeast Airport in Philadelphia in the hopes to be done in June. “There is an airport (Wing’s Field) right by my house that did ‘Discovery Flights.’ My dad went the first time. He asked me if I wanted to go the next time, and I loved it up there. It was something I just loved to do. I did a few more, and I just fell in love.”
Among Busk’s biggest supporters is PW head coach Dave Stewart, who watched her maturation process – her personal discovery flight -- from a raw all-around natural athlete to a high-end volleyball player who has received numerous All-League and All-District accolades. “A.J. is a player who entered high school with only a little experience playing the game and, over her career, has blossomed into a force to be reckoned with,” said Stewart. “She is a strong silent type who leads by example, both on and off the court. She has been so resilient, coming back from an ankle injury that happened at the worst possible time. She has put in many long hours training and working to get back the time she lost and, thankfully, it has paid off. We talk, all the time, about getting rewarded for the effort exerted, and no one deserves it more than A.J.”
When Stewart, known as “Stew” to Busk, says the injury was at the “worst possible time,” he is not exaggerating. “She broke her ankle in the spring of her sophomore season, which is when she should have been spending time visiting potential schools that she could have been recruited by,” he said. “Therefore, a lot of athletes in her class were recruited before her.” The youngest of four daughters of Erica and Patrick Busk, recalled that time of darkness before the eventual dawn. “It was really hard,” said Busk. “When I was injured, it was right when coaches are allowed to speak to you, and I was injured throughout that entire summer. Kids my age were being recruited while I was in a boot and crutches.” Busk got back onto the court for the Colonials that fall, but the comeback was short-lived. “I worked back to finally play in my high school season, but the doctors missed a front ankle sprain,” she said. “My original injury wasn’t full recovered either. They put me back in a boot for a few more months, and I missed a lot of my club season. The whole team was being recruited, so I was really far behind. During the summer, I was kind of stuck. During the school year, I put myself out there to coaches, but I didn’t really know where I wanted to go. I wanted to be far away. I was emailing coaches in Texas, Florida and Arizona.”
When Busk visited some of these schools, she said they “just didn’t feel like home.” However, the saying that good things come to those who wait is not lost on Busk. The College of Charleston was like false advertising to her. “It actually just reminded me a lot of being down the shore,” said Busk. “You always see pictures, and you see other stuff, and you think it’s going to look that way. Then, when you step on a campus, it doesn’t look that way. But this was exactly what it looked like in their pictures. I stepped on the campus, and I was, like, ‘Whoa.’ It’s beautiful.” But it was more than just the optics. “The coaches were great,” added Busk. “I love them. I can’t wait for the season to start. I think they are doing well right now, and I think that they are going to be on the rise and will go very far in the future.” As the season intensifies for the Colonials, Busk will be right where she wants to be. As a boater and aspiring pilot, she invites and thrives on the pressure. “I find it thrilling,” she explained. “It just goes to show who puts in the most effort and who is not scared. I think that is when I perform best, most of the time.”
To read the complete Busk story, please click on the following link: https://suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/amanda-aj-busk-00115313
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of Oct. 7, 2024)
Chase Rubincam’s chances of making varsity as a freshman were slim at best. Turns out the now Springfield senior was caught in a numbers game. “We had a lot of returning players, and I had no intention of taking any freshmen,” Springfield coach Dan Meder said. “I knew the freshman class coming up, and I knew they were good, but we just thought – that’s going to be our JV team, and we’ll be fine.” After watching Rubincam go through the drills and timed runs, the veteran coach was forced to rethink his position. “Chase was in the top five guys of every drill, of every run that we did,” Meder said. “So I looked at my assistant coach, and I’m like – ‘We’ll find a place for this kid, this kid wants to play.’ He earned himself a spot.”
At the end of the first week of preseason, Meder posted a list of varsity and JV, and Rubincam was the lone freshman on the varsity. The script, however, did not exactly go as planned. “That Friday night of the first week I started feeling pains in my stomach,” Rubincam said. ‘I honestly just thought it was a normal stomachache, but it just progressively got worse overnight. “I went to the hospital the next morning and had a CT scan, and they said it was an appendicitis.”
Once again, things did not go as planned. “I went to Abington Hospital, but they said they couldn’t operate on me because I was a kid at the time,” Rubincam said. “They had to transfer me to CHOP, and that was delayed. Once we got to CHOP, we were in the waiting room a really long time and didn’t get a room until 4 a.m. My appendix ended up bursting, and it got worse. I got surgery that Sunday, two days after it started hurting. They said, ‘You’re going to spend at least two days in the hospital, maybe five.’ It turned into three weeks and another surgery.”
The second surgery came after Rubincam, at the three-day mark, wasn’t seeing the progress that was anticipated. “I wasn’t eating or anything,” he said. “They took another scan, and my bowels were blocked, which is why I wasn’t eating. They had to do another surgery, and then they found a hernia in the second surgery. I was just banged up. That ended up being three weeks, and I missed the first week-and-a-half of school.” Rubincam came back the last two weeks of the season but was not in playing shape and saw very limited time. “It was crazy,” Rubincam said. “That was the first time I’ve ever had surgery or anything like that. Obviously, I was so happy to make varsity too, so that was a setback. Missing out on that season was rough.”
If there was a silver lining, Rubincam realized just how much he loved soccer. “Especially because of the support from everyone on my high school team and my club team,” he said. “They were always supporting me and doing stuff for me while I was in the hospital.”
With soccer absent from his life during his hospital stay, Rubincam improvised.
“They had this outdoor garden with a basketball hoop with balls,” he said. “I would go up there with my IV and try and juggle the basketball the best I could with my foot.”
Rubincam’s soccer career has been on a decided upswing since that difficult freshman season. A fixture in the varsity lineup since he was a sophomore, he was a key part of teams that earned back-to-back trips to the PIAA 3A state final.
Off the soccer pitch, Rubincam is in the top 15 percent of his class, and academics are a priority. He is taking AP calculus and AP physics. He has not made a college choice but is looking at northern schools. “A school where I could play soccer but also is a very good academic school would be great,” said Rubincam, who last year was named a student rep to the school board. “I’m not sure of a major, but a school where I can balance the student-athlete life with the academic life.”
For now, Rubincam is focused on what has already been a special soccer season. Leading the way for the SOL Freedom Division champion Spartans will be Rubincam and fellow captains Ben Hubley and Kayden Sowell. “I’ve had to have conversations with kids in the past about – ‘Hey look, you’re a great player, but I need you to be a leader now,’” Meder said. “These three captains have just always been leaders out front. We’ve had kids like that recently – not only good soccer players but good kids. They’re just always doing what they should be doing, and that’s a huge part of the success we’ve had.”
To read Rubincam’s complete story, please click on the following link: https://suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/chase-rubincam-00115352
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