For more than two decades, every Bayside Academy volleyball player inherited the same expectation: win the state championship, because the teams before you always had. Maysie Douglas, a member of Bayside’s Class of 2024 and a standout for longtime coach Ann Schilling, captured what that weight feels like in an essay titled “Pressure is a Privilege,” written before her senior season began — a season that would end with the program’s historic run of 21 straight state titles coming to a close.
Douglas graduated from the Daphne private school in May 2024 and was headed to Auburn University that fall. Her essay, and her coach’s reflections on the end of what the program simply calls The Streak, offer a look at how young athletes learn to carry pressure, lead teammates and handle loss.
The Streak That Defined Bayside Volleyball
Few high school programs anywhere can match what Bayside Academy volleyball accomplished. The school won 21 consecutive state championships before falling to Mountain Brook in the fall of 2023, Douglas’s senior season. Before The Streak even began, Bayside had already collected ten state titles.
Schilling has been at the center of it all. A graduate of McGill-Toolen High School in Mobile, she began her coaching career there before moving across the bay to Bayside. In all, she has been coaching girls’ volleyball for 36 years.
“I started here in 1987, and we won our first state championship in 1992. We’ve been climbing the ladder ever since, moving up from one classification to another higher classification along the way,” Schilling said.
That climb matters. In Alabama, high school sports are organized by the Alabama High School Athletic Association into classifications based largely on enrollment, and private schools can be moved into higher classes under the association’s rules. Over the years, Bayside’s volleyball program rose from Class 1A all the way to 6A, facing larger schools with deeper rosters as it went. As Schilling put it, the target on her team’s back kept getting bigger and bigger.
How the Run Ended
Bayside’s 2023 season ended in the state semifinals against Mountain Brook, a perennial power from the Birmingham suburbs. The match went the full five sets, the longest a volleyball match can go, with the deciding set played to 15 points rather than 25. In a format like that, a handful of rallies can decide a season.
“These kids are champions, whether they win or lose. They fight and scratch, and never give up. It’s a game of inches,” Schilling said. “These girls have embraced the mental toughness of being in the limelight. When it mattered, they always seemed to find a way. When The Streak ended after we lost in five games to Mountain Brook last Fall, I was proud that our team turned a negative into a positive.”
Douglas was named the MVP of that match, according to her coach. “We had a chance to win and keep The Streak alive, but we just didn’t close the deal on that particular day. Maysie performed great,” Schilling said. “Throughout my coaching career, it’s been fun to see the kids gain that confidence and develop that winner’s mindset.”
“Pressure Is a Privilege”
The phrase Douglas chose for her essay’s title has a well-known history in sports. It is most closely associated with tennis great Billie Jean King, who has long used the phrase and made it the title of a book. The idea is simple: being in a position where something is on the line means you have earned the chance to compete for it.
For a Bayside volleyball player, that idea is not abstract. Douglas wrote her essay before the 2023 season began, reflecting on what it meant to play for a team riding a 21-year championship streak and on the responsibility that grows each year as leadership passes from one senior class to the next. Each group of seniors inherits not only the record but the job of teaching younger players how to handle the spotlight.
Her essay traces how her own view of that responsibility matured over her career at Bayside — from a younger player surrounded by upperclassmen to a senior expected to take the reins. It is a perspective many athletes on championship programs share, but few put into words so directly before their final season.
A Coach’s Perspective, Shaped by Adversity
Asked how she handled the end of such a long run, Schilling pointed to something far larger than volleyball.
“I have so many great memories. Six years ago, I was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. I stopped worrying about a lot of things,” she said. “I want my girls to understand where to look in good times and bad. I think I began handling things better after the battle with cancer.”
That outlook, she said, shapes how she approaches both winning and losing with her players. Building a program that believes it can win under any circumstances is part of the job, but so is helping young women keep perspective when the results do not go their way.
“As a coach, it’s my responsibility to help create the competitive monster mindset. That winner instinct, if you will,” Schilling said. “It wasn’t just me but success builds over the years and you can find a gear that will prevail. It doesn’t always work out in your favor, but watching these ladies buy into that privilege that pressure brings has been a privilege.”
What Sports Teach Beyond the Court
Douglas’s story arrived at a time when graduating seniors across coastal Alabama were celebrating the end of high school and preparing for college, careers and new cities. Along the Eastern Shore, spring 2024 brought the usual mix of pride and bittersweet goodbyes — from final choir concerts to last matches and commencement ceremonies. Among them, Fairhope High School choir member Rawlin Hoffman performed his final concert with his choral group before heading to the University of Alabama on a full scholarship, and St. Paul’s Episcopal School graduate Jake Prati was bound for Auburn.
For athletes like Douglas, the lessons of competitive sports often travel with them long after the final whistle. Researchers and educators have long noted that participation in high school athletics is associated with skills such as teamwork, time management, goal setting and resilience. Playing for a program with Bayside’s expectations adds another layer: learning to perform when everyone is watching, and learning to respond with grace when a streak ends on your watch.
Schilling’s teams have always talked about embracing the spotlight rather than shrinking from it. Douglas’s essay suggests that message took hold — that the pressure of wearing a Bayside jersey was something to be earned and valued, not feared.
About Bayside Academy
Bayside Academy is an independent, college-preparatory day school in Daphne, serving students from the early grades through high school. Its athletic programs compete in the AHSAA, and its girls’ volleyball team has long been regarded as one of the most successful high school programs in Alabama history. The school sits on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, a fast-growing part of Baldwin County where school sports draw strong community support each fall.
Volleyball in Alabama is a fall sport, with the regular season beginning in late summer and building toward regional play and the state tournament later in the fall. For Bayside, the state tournament has been an annual destination for more than three decades, and the program’s history of titles has made it a measuring stick for schools across the state.
Looking Ahead
Long streaks in high school sports are remarkably difficult to sustain. Rosters turn over completely every few years, opponents circle the date on their calendars, and every graduating class takes experience and leadership with it. Maintaining a championship standard across more than two decades means rebuilding again and again, with younger players stepping into roles that older teammates filled the year before. That is why the passing of leadership Douglas described in her essay is so central to a program like Bayside’s: The Streak survived as long as it did because each senior class accepted responsibility for the next.
Schilling noted that success at Bayside was never the work of one person. The culture built over the years, she said, helped each new team find another gear when it mattered most.
With The Streak behind them, Bayside’s players and coaches have the chance to start a new chapter, and Schilling’s words suggest the program’s standards have not changed. Every season brings a new senior class charged with passing on what it learned.
As for Douglas, she carried the lessons of four years in one of Alabama’s most demanding programs to Auburn. Her coach said watching players like her buy into the pressure was a privilege of its own — a fitting echo of the essay that started the conversation.
To every member of the Class of 2024 who stepped into the next stage of life, the message from the Bayside gym applies well beyond volleyball: surround yourself with people who push you, embrace the moments that matter and treat the pressure as proof that you have earned your place.