Oliviah Wilkerson is a sophomore at Worthington Kilbourne High School and is the next Wolf of the Week. She is a part of the girls varsity basketball team and the junior varsity girls volleyball team, and takes several advanced classes with plans of taking more.
When Wilkerson was in elementary school at Bluffsview Elementary school, she was two years ahead in math and a year ahead in English. When she was in fourth grade, the school approached her mother and recommended that Wilkerson skip a grade. Wilkerson took the test, and passed. Reflecting on her choice, Wilkerson says, “Everything was really really easy in the other grades, so I was going to school but I was going without a purpose. I was just going to go.” She continues, “Skipping a grade made school a little more enjoyable because I’m actually learning.” However, not everything was easy. “I was young for the grade I was in, but now I’m two years younger than everybody. It was a little hard to make friends,” Wilkerson shares.
Wilkerson also plays basketball and volleyball for WKHS, but she had started playing basketball when she was young. “I had played a little bit of basketball when I was seven or eight years old, but I actually started playing in sixth grade through WYB (Worthington Youth Boosters),” Wilkerson says, adding on that “I started playing volleyball freshman year, so I don’t take it as seriously because I’m still new to it.” Wilkerson has been on varsity for basketball since freshman year and has been on junior varsity for both years as well. When asked about playing on the varsity basketball team, she shared, “On varsity, you’re playing with people who really want to play, they want to go to college for it. It’s really competitive, and I like that.” However, playing varsity basketball has serious commitments that come with it. “It’s a lot of work. We practice every day of the week that we don’t have a game, and some Sundays. We really only have Saturday off,” Wilkerson tells us. The consistent and intense practice is great for Wilkerson, as she includes, “I take basketball seriously. I want to go to college for it.”
When prompted about future colleges and potential careers, Wilkerson shares a common question faced when thinking about going to college: “I can’t decide if I want to stay close, or if I want to go far. I might go to Claflin University in South Carolina, but that’s really far, so I might stay here and go to OSU (The Ohio State University) or Bowling Green State University.” Claflin University is a predominantly black college, with Gloria Blackwell, a civil rights activist, as an alumni. Wilkerson continues, “I would like to go into neuroscience. I don’t really know what I want to do in [neuroscience], but definitely something around that.”
Be sure to attend some of the girls basketball games this season to cheer Wilkerson and the rest of the team on, and look out for the girls volleyball games next fall season! Go wolves!
