Move forward and adapt

This past volleyball season, everything seemed to be going right for the Lady Tigers. Coach Kelsey Hudson had almost all of her players back from a young 2020 playoff team and it looked like the group was poised for a deep playoff run.

Nothing felt different in a home game with Rogers on Friday, Sept. 24. The Lady Tigers were up early against the traditionally dominant Lady Eagles. But late in the second set, a fall would change the trajectory of their season.

I was looking down at my camera, but my head popped back up immediately when I heard a loud cry. My jaw more or less dropped when Halle Jimenez was crying while her sister, four-year veteran Haven Jimenez, was lying on the ground in pain.

With what was eventually found to be an ACL injury, the older Jimenez never got another kill in the Blue-and-Gold. Everything changed for those girls immediately. Inspired, they fought hard to win that match, but the entire team’s world was flipped upside down. The Lady Tigers were forced to adjust in order to be successful. Julie Bartsch had to be more dominant at the net and had to spend time on the backline. Sophomore Hailey Webb’s playing time increased significantly. Both players had to grow up on the court a lot faster than they planned.

It was really hard on her sister, sophomore Halle Jimenez, who played really well but you could tell that Haven’s absence really ate at her, and I couldn’t help but empathize with the sadness I could see she felt.

The player that bore a lot of the brunt on the floor was junior setter Yolianna Castillo. She was used to running everywhere but she had to work so much harder than she already was. There would be points that she shouldered most of the burden in those first couple of games without Haven and she was visibly frustrated and overwhelmed.

But as time went along, she seemed to struggle less. I talked to her towards the end of the season and she told me things never really got easier, she just adapted to what was her new normal.

She didn’t sulk and constantly long for those times when Haven was on the floor with her to lead the team. She didn’t withdraw herself to the point that she quit on the people that relied on her. She adapted, and I think that’s a very valuable lesson that people should take into account.

Many people here long for Rockdale of the 1950s, the 1980s, or the early 2000s when you could go from graduating RHS to making a salary that ensured a good standard of living within months.

But the fact of the matter is that those days aren’t coming back, and well-paying manufacturing jobs aren’t exactly popping up around the U.S.

While that may be disappointing to hear for some people, Rockdale is particularly lucky in terms of geography.

Unlike many small towns that have seen their economy shrink, we’re a little more than 50 miles from one of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. and quite honestly, the world. While that alone doesn’t guarantee growth, Samsung plans to build a microchip plant 25 miles away from the city of Rockdale. That also doesn’t mean commerce will come to Rockdale and it won’t happen overnight, but the odds seem to tilt in our favor more than ever with the infrastructure left by Alcoa.

If you look on Zillow, people are snatching up land around Rockdale like nobody’s business and if there’s a neighborhood with an open lot, someone’s likely already building a house on it.

Just west of us, Thorndale is building 88 new houses and that’s a town with only 1,294 people in the 2020 census. If I say something about Rockdale potentially growing to someone under 30, they typically respond, “yeah, probably,” just because people my age notice all this and have to take it into account. Because it’s our reality that we have to plan for.

But in order to achieve a better future, we’ll have to move forward and adapt. We have to try new things and welcome new people and give them reasons to stay, not remind them why it may not be the best place to be.

It may have helped Taylor that they were 30 miles from downtown Austin and had cheaper land than what could be bought in Travis County, but they also did a lot of good things. They cleaned up their downtown. Taylor has cool shops like the Texas Beer Company, Black Sparrow and Good Strangers coffee shop (formerly Curbside Coffee) that make Taylor seem more modern. I know when I first moved here, I would drive to downtown Taylor and hang out there instead of saving gas and staying home.

They made the effort and didn’t try to hold back progress. And it obviously made a good impression on the Samsung execs.

Even before construction began on US 79, what do you think officials from Samsung’s first impression of Rockdale would’ve been driving through the city from west to east?

In terms of attracting a big company, the only reason I care is because it means hard-working people that I share a community with can elevate their standard of living by having good pay, benefits and a nice work-life balance. I think that alone can create a collectively more energetic community. and not one that’s constantly reminded how they are getting cheated in a country where the winners seem to win more than ever and losers just really lose.

Even if we don’t attract something big, the point is to build up the community. Create a Rockdale that people come to intentionally and not just end up in. Give people who don’t go on to college or people wanting to move back outlets besides hard liquor or hard drugs. All people need here are options. In order to provide options, we need a balance of new ideas from the people that already live here who know the community well and newcomers who can bring different ideas that will make it even better.

The way I see it, Rockdale’s going to grow. But we should capitalize on that and not squander the opportunities and risk having the same problems we already have but with a bigger population.

To do that, we have to move forward and adapt and stop longing for the “good-old days” if we want better ones to come.