School: Upper Dublin
Volleyball
Favorite athlete: Ryan Howard
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: “Winning a tough five-game match against Neshaminy with an ace after struggling with my serve the whole game.”
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: “My sophomore year, helping the varsity team warm up, my twin brother, who was on varsity at the time while I was on JV (which was embarrassing enough as is), was hitting out of the middle as I was passing and hit me square in the ______. Pretty embarrassing/painful.”
Music on iPod: John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Coldplay, and Vampire Weekend among others
Future plans: Attend University of Pennsylvania in the fall and study business, environmental science, and German
Words to live by: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost
One goal before turning 30: “Live in Germany at some point”
One thing people don’t know about me: “Whenever I get a free moment, I love playing guitar.”
“The end of the year is getting closer and closer…Take every opportunity to be with your friends and truly appreciate them. Take every opportunity to catch up with people you haven’t talked to in a while. Give anyone and everyone a chance – you’ll find that you have more in common with most people than you originally thought. Take every opportunity to make right things you might’ve done wrong. This is it, really. It’s your last chance.”
-James, The Upper Dublin Insider
James Stine is accustomed to giving advice as the editor and creator of the web site The Upper Dublin Insider, and a quick glance at his year-end advice on the site suggests that the Upper Dublin senior understands the importance of taking advantage of opportunities.
He does.
Stine is one of those extraordinary students who has gotten his money’s worth and then some out of his high school years. A natural leader, he is the vice president of the Student Government Association this year after serving as vice president of his class the preceding three years. He also is president of the German Club and is a member of the National Honor Society.
Stine, along with another SGA member, organized and ran a volleyball marathon that raised over $1,800 for Wylie’s Day Foundation, a local charity for a member of the Class of 2010 who passed away from pediatric brain cancer.
Although Upper Dublin does not have class rankings, it’s no secret that Stine – who is taking six AP classes this year - would be number one if it did. Mention that fact, and it’s pretty clear Stine doesn’t put much stock in rankings.
“The way our GPA is worked out – I don’t think it’s perfect,” he said. “Without a doubt there are kids who are smarter than I am at the high school. I wouldn’t try and say that I’m the most brilliant student because there are kids that are just so talented.”
That being said, Stine was undoubtedly an easy choice to represent the school on Channel 6 ABC’s Best of the Class that will be televised in June.
“He’s the epitome of everything that is good about young people, and he’s a really genuinely nice kid,” Upper Dublin volleyball coach Mary Jane Lyons said. “He’s everything you’d want in a student-athlete.”
And more.
Stine recently earned the 2010 Upper Dublin Medal for Outstanding Male Student which he will receive at a ceremony on May 26.
“He’s just a go-to kid no matter what it is, whether it’s academics, the community or athletics,” Lyons said.
Although Stine did not begin playing volleyball until he was a sophomore, he was a captain and the heart of this year’s squad.
“He sets the standard for what is expected from every player, including himself,” Lyons said. “He’s very positive, but he’s appropriately aggressive.
“He’ll get the team fired up. He wants people to push for points. He expects people to be ready to play because he is. That expectation always makes for a good court presence, and the jayvee players want to be like him.”
Stine’s journey in sports has been an interesting one.
He grew up playing soccer and basketball, and when he was in middle school, he competed in both sports and was a distance runner for the track team in the spring.
In middle school, Stine was hit with the injury bug, suffering a stress fracture in his fifth lumbar in seventh grade. One year later, he had soft tissue sprains in both of his knees.
“After both of those injuries, I was never quite the same on the soccer field or on the basketball court,” Stine said. “My freshman year I tried doing another year of soccer and basketball, but I played on the freshman team for both, and it was pretty clear there wasn’t much of a future in it because I just wasn’t fast enough.
“My game was primarily about speed. In soccer, I was a right fullback, so it was about being fast. For basketball, I was a small forward, so again, I was a defensive player, and losing my speed was detrimental.”
As a sophomore, Stine gave up soccer and basketball and went out for the golf team instead.
“To be honest, athletics kind of came second,” he said. “I was more into academics and my extra curriculars with student government, so being sidelined with the sports track wasn’t really the end of the world.
“I had grown up playing golf, so switching to golf wasn’t a bad change, but volleyball came out of left field. I wasn’t really ever intending to be a volleyball player.”
Until, that is, his twin brother Alex began playing volleyball.
“He just happened to try out (his) freshman year, and he seemed to really like it,” Stine said. “The volleyball program at Upper Dublin is so new that if you’re athletic anyone really has an opportunity to try out and see what they can do.”
Although Stine was kept busy with his extra curriculars, something was missing.
“I have a huge competitive side to me,” he said. “Alex is honestly a much bigger athlete than I am. He had played varsity soccer, varsity swimming and varsity volleyball.
“I’d go to his (volleyball) games, and I’d watch the competitive play and camaraderie, and I honestly would just be jealous. I wanted that back because even though you get that same kind of camaraderie in student government, it’s not the same. We’re not competing against anyone to raise funds. We’re just making money for charity. That’s great, but it’s not the same. I was just kind of yearning for that competitive team atmosphere again, and I knew that would come from volleyball.”
Stine found exactly what he was looking for on the volleyball court.
“As a sophomore, he was playing jayvee and just learning the game, but once he really started to understand the strategy of the game and how to play, he became a key player this year,” Lyons said. “Last year, he was a good player, but it wasn’t instinctual.
“He played club over the winter, and it just clicked.”
Volleyball moved to the fore when he gave up golf last fall after choosing to participate in a five-week summer program at the University of Pennsylvania called Leadership in the Business World.
“I was living on campus, and it was a 24-hour thing where I was always doing something, so I never really had an opportunity to practice golf,” Stine said. “I was doing other things over the summer too, and I was more than satisfied. I would make the same decision again.”
Stine, one of six children, heard about the Penn program through a friend of his brother, a rising senior at Penn himself.
“It sounded exactly like something that was up my alley,” Stine said. “I love UPenn, I love the city, so I applied for the program and got lucky and got in.”
The experience confirmed that Penn is where Stine wanted to spend his college years as well.
“I had my heart set on UPenn since my freshman year,” he said. “That was always where I wanted to go. I knew I was headed in the business school track, and the Wharton School is really next to none.
“I knew I wanted to go there, and the program was a great opportunity to meet some people at Penn. I always had the idea that I wanted to go to Penn, but I never really experienced it. That summer program was for me the test of whether or not it was actually right, and in the process, I learned a lot and met a lot of great people.”
This past winter, Stine began playing volleyball with the Panther Club team at William Tennent.
“Getting that extra season in before the spring season – it was a night and day difference really,” Stine said. “So much of volleyball – you spend the first maybe month of practice picking up what you lost in the offseason, so I kind of had gotten that done already and was ready to move forward and get better when the season began.
“My junior year compared to my senior year was so different - I wasn’t even remotely the player I am now, and I’m still not anything special for Suburban One. The difference between this year and last year is huge.”
Lyons agreed.
“When he came in this year, he became one of our go-to players,” the Flying Cardinals’ coach said. “He’s a very smart player. He sees the court, which is something I try to stress to all of my players, and I find it the most difficult thing to teach because they’re constantly worried about where the ball is, and they don’t take a second to look elsewhere.
“He is very coachable. He wants to know my opinion or our assistant coach’s opinion. He’s constantly open to adjusting.”
Stine was unanimously voted a captain by his teammates.
“He was a leader, and he really wanted the season to be something special,” Lyons said. “He was determined to work to make that happen.”
Stine effortlessly stepped into his role of captain.
“I have always been really vocal, and I’ve always been really huge into leadership, whether it’s in extra curriculars or on the volleyball court,” he said. “This year being a captain – I took a lot of that weight and put it on my shoulders. I tried to be a vocal leader out there.
“My brother (Alex) is relatively quiet, and he kind of plays his own game and does what he needs to do out there, but someone needed to be that kind of unifying factor on the team. I think coach expected that of me, and I think I expected that of myself.”
Although he believes the Flying Cardinals did not live up to their potential, Stine walks away from his final season with no regrets.
“I wouldn’t have traded it for anything,” he said. “It was a great experience. We’re still building a program, and it’s really great to see that all the freshmen are kind of taking after us.
“I have never seen such commitment from the volleyball players and from the parents too. I think this is the first year that everyone is kind of realizing this is a competitive sport, and it should be taken seriously.
“For so long – and probably in a lot of districts, men’s volleyball just isn’t that highly regarded, but I think our senior class really helped bring the volleyball program in the right direction. I’m hoping to come back in four or five years and hear about the great team at Upper Dublin. That’s my dream.”
This fall, Stine- who boasts a 4.9 GPA - will head off to Penn with the goal of pursing a degree in business with a minor in environmental science and German.
“It’s aggressive, it’s a lofty goal, but if I can make it work, that’s my hope,” he said. “I’m hoping to get into the business end of the green and sustainability movement.
“There are a lot of companies out there doing a lot of great things for the environment creating sustainable products, and I’m hoping to get into the business end of that.
“German plays in really well too because Germany is the number one country when it comes to everything that’s green and sustainable, so to be able to really speak German would be a great asset.”
In the meantime, Stine will be enjoying what remains of his final high school year, heeding his own advice to make the most of every opportunity.
