Profile: Brooke Phillips

Photo by Lola Conopio-Mora
Brooke Phillips excited for new opportunities

By: Lola Conopio-Mora

Gymnastics. Charity. Speech and debate. Brooke Phillips was involved in it all. Until she had
experienced a terrible injury. The injury that caused her to have to let go of a passion. 

Phillips is a freshman this year. She has always been involved with multiple extracurriculars in the past and in the present.

“I used to do gymnastics pretty competitively and now I’m involved with the National Charity League and I do speech and debate team,” says Phillips.

Phillips had a dedication to gymnastics starting at a young age.
“I started gymnastics at a pretty early age, like five I want to say, and then I got into competitions but a couple years ago I injured myself pretty badly which prevented me from continuing gymnastics,” says Phillips.

Everyone hates injuries that cause us to have to sit out from our sport for few weeks or maybe a couple of months. But this injury, as described by Phillips, has caused her to have to be out for years and who knows how long after. The injury that she has is degeneration and a protruding disk with chronic pain. This means that the spinal disk has weakened and is now protruding outward into the spinal canal, causing her to not be able to participate in gymnastics.

Phillips has been working with charity to make others’ lives better. Charity is big part of helping out in one’s community. She is involved in NCL, which stands for the National Charity League. The name of the league is pretty self explanatory and she does it with her mom and some friends. She started participating in NCL when she was in sixth grade.

“My sister did it before me so I just always knew I was going to do it and my sister’s friend introduced it to us.”

Phillips has gotten to work with numerous philanthropies through NCL such as: Project Lemonade, Meals on Wheels, and Friends of the Children.

“Overall, NCL has helped me get involved and help out in the community.”

Phillips is also a debater. She has recently joined the high school speech and debate team.

“I do speech and debate now because I’ve always kind of debated but like not for a team just in life, so I figured, why not take that habit and turn in into a hobby?” She aspires to continue with speech and debate team and hopefully win some competitions.

Being involved in extracurriculars means also having to juggle the other stuff in her life. Phillips says it’s beneficial. 

“Being involved in extracurriculars has made me more driven and motivated in life all around,” she says. Getting to spend time on and do the things she loves is her incentive to get good grades in school and just do well in general. Although, naturally, Phillips is a driven person who strives to do her best. 

Phillips loves to help out in the community and makes this a large part of her life. She is also not one to give up. She is a very dedicated, motivated, and driven person ready to take on whatever challenge is thrown at her next.