Bella Satterwhite grew up as an only child in a very athletic home.

Her dad, David, played Division one college basketball at DePaul and her mom, Brenda, was an elite level swimmer.

My parents were always like, we're going to have an athletic kid and all that.

So it was definitely a major part of my life from the beginning.

After trying numerous sports, Bella got hooked on volleyball and really took off as a middle schooler.

When she started working with revered local volleyball trainer Brant Beckstrom, he said, I think you could be something really special.

He really believed in me and so just training with him after just a couple of months, I saw great improvement and growth and that's what I definitely started having confidence with myself and thought I could definitely take it to the next level.

Backstrom put her on the path to success, but tragically, she would not be around to see Bella achieve it.

He passed away from brain cancer in 2021.

I think about him every day like it makes me feel what?

Oh.

Even, like on senior night.

Everything, you know, even from, like, multiple years, every time we have, like, a video that plays, like, every time Brennan shows up, everyone starts crying because he was just such a, an impactful person in the community and really grew the volleyball community as a whole.

Gulf Breeze High School volleyball is perennially one of the top programs in the state, but even among that lofty group, Bella immediately stood out.

Her freshman year, when she came in, there was a lot of chatter, chatter about this outside hitter that was coming in, and then you see her hit the first ball and you don't even have to see it.

You hear it and you're like, oh, okay, this girl's legit.

She always seemed like she was a level above us.

So I mean, even, the freshman year of volleyball when she made varsity, that was unheard of for us.

So.

So that's really where it was like, wow.

She's great.

Bella wood star for the Dolphins.

As a stunningly impactful attacker who would go on to break the school record for kills, but also developing into a dynamic all around player, excelling on defense, serving and receiving.

That was definitely something that took a lot of time because that's not natural for me, but it definitely has helped my whole entire career being able to play all the way around and be a versatile player.

In her sophomore year, Gulf restarted a beach volleyball program, something Bella had dabbled in on the club level.

At first I hated beach volleyball.

I was like, I don't like the sun, I don't like the heat, the sand, all that.

But then after they started the the this beach volleyball team, I was like, I'll just play for fun.

The camaraderie of the new Gulf Breeze program started to change her tune, but a real turning point came when Bella attended a camp run by national beach volleyball guru Nicole Christner.

She was like, I think you could play at top ten D1 schools for beach volleyball.

And I was like, no, that's not happening.

Like, I'm not that good.

But when Bella started going to tournaments in California, she realized she was that good.

Coaches were showing a lot of interest, and I was playing like against some of the best girls in the country, and we were really competing like we were right there.

And I was like, this is, this is this is weird.

Like.

And then I started to have a lot of fun with, like, just how competitive it was and how I could be so competitive within the sport now that I was on the beach for Bella.

Like, who's who's that girl?

A lot of that athletic ability and just IQ of the game translated well for her coming out to the sand.

She's a teammate that you want to have, but she's also a player that you want to have as a coach.

And I think everybody who comes in contact with her realizes that really quickly.

You don't really get to play with that very often.

You don't get to coach that kind of player very often either.

So she's just really impactful for her teammates as well as the program.

With Bella leading the way, the program pulled off a stunning accomplishment in 2020 for winning the state championship in just their second year of existence.

I got to do it with my best friends that I would have never known if it wasn't for this program, and just to do it with that group of people was so special.

A remarkable rise in beach volleyball is taking her to the best college program in the country.

Bella signed with the University of Southern California, winners of the last four national championships.

That's huge, I think not only for Bella, but for kind of the girls that are looking up to her and seeing what's possible.

It's pretty cool to have a player of that caliber in your program.

In the first three years that you started.

It's still kind of hard to comprehend like that.

They're, you know, the number one school in the country that I'm going there.

Because I definitely say in the beginning, I was not as confident as a player at all.

I was I would settle for less, and just kind of finding that within myself really helped grow my game.

It really means so much to me.

Knowing that everything has like, paid off.