A life filled with BALANCE

Long before senior Klaire Mitchell wowed fans as a setter for the Lake City High volleyball team, people used to come watch her perform and marvel.

“She was amazing,” said her mom, Karla.

“I’m just thinking, ‘She is marvelous,’” said Cecille (Ceci) Klein.

Thing is, they weren’t watching her play volleyball.

“I used to be a ballerina, actually. All the way up until eighth grade,” Klaire said.

Turns out, a really good one.

Her mom, who danced a little growing up, took Klaire to a local dance studio when she was around 7 years old. She started doing jazz (dance), and hip-hop.

Soon, she was noticed by Klein, who was with the Ballet School of Coeur d’Alene at the time. Klein took Klaire under her wing and trained her as a ballerina.

Klaire trained for hours each day, taking breaks for schooling (she took classes online as a seventh- and eighth-grader) as well as practice with her club volleyball team, coached by her mom.

“For me ... watching her dance was very surreal,” Karla said. “She was phenomenal, and when she danced, it didn’t even feel like it was my own child. She was so beautiful.”

“She was rather shy,” Klein recalled. “But she had the small head, and the small body, the long limbs, and the beautiful arched feet. So now I know I have facility, and I have to train her, and see what I can bring out of her.

“What I noticed about her was, she kept working on a specific step over and over, until she got it right. So I knew that she loved the work. Because if you don’t love the work, then you cannot become a dancer.”

The summer before her freshman year, Klaire spent five weeks in New York City, where she attended The School of American Ballet summer intensive series. At the end of the summer, she was one of three girls selected to attend The School of American Ballet. If she accepted, Klaire would have spent the next four years in New York City, training and completing her schooling, then likely moving on to a potentially lucrative career with the New York City Ballet.

She said thanks, but no thanks.

“I decided to quit, and decided to play volleyball instead,” Klaire said.

It wasn’t an easy decision.

“It took me a couple of weeks,” she said. “And when I first said no they actually told me I have another week (to decide).They couldn’t believe I said no.”

One week later, she said no again.

“She said, ‘If I could take my family and friends to New York City, I would dance for the New York City Ballet,’” Karla said. “‘If I could bring the New York City Ballet to Coeur d’Alene, I would dance for the New York City Ballet. As it is, I’m going to go to high school, and I’m going to be a volleyball player.’”

What did mom and dad think of that decision?

“Keith was thrilled,” Karla said. “I felt like, ‘You can always come home.’ I felt like, ‘You have a God-given talent. You are amazing at this.’

She said ‘Life is hard in New York City as a ballerina, and I like my Coeur d’Alene, Idaho life.’ That just really made us proud as parents, that her values were so spot on. And the ability for a 14-year-old to make that type of decision is just amazing.”

“It kinda broke my heart, but she knew what she wanted,” said Klein, who was director and master teacher at the Ballet School of Coeur d’Alene for 27 years, before retiring 3½ years ago. “She never faltered (as a ballerina). She did everything correctly. What can I say? You give her a job to do and she would do it. She had an eye for perfection, and a body to go with.”

Had Klaire stayed with ballet?

“She would probably be in the company (New York City Ballet),” Klein said.

With all that promise, does Klaire ever look back?

“No, I actually have never missed it,” Klaire said of ballet. “Which is kinda crazy, but good.”

BALLET’S LOSS turned out to be volleyball’s gain.

The 5-foot-6 Mitchell is in her fourth season as starting setter for Lake City. She was the MVP of the 5A Inland Empire League each of the past two seasons, and she was an all-league selection as a freshman.

This season, with the Timberwolves needing more offensive punch at the net, she also hits on the right side in her three rotations in the front row.

Klaire has been verbally committed to NCAA Division I Grand Canyon University in Phoenix since April of her sophomore year. She can sign a national letter of intent with the Lopes in November.

Last year, she helped the Timberwolves place second at state — the highest finish in program history. With most of those players back this season, Lake City has even higher aspirations this season.

“She is so talented, and has so much body control,” second-year Lake City volleyball coach Mike Summers said. “I’ve never had a setter quite like her, with the things she can do — her accuracy and placement of her sets. No matter where she is on the court, she always seems to be able to get that ball up to the net and allow us to get a swing vs. giving a free ball.”

Klaire’s mom, the former Karla Yrjana, was a setter/outside hitter at Kellogg High. She played for Bret Taylor at North Idaho College, was head coach at Coeur d’Alene High, and later coached with Bret at NIC.

That time at NIC is where Klaire received her introduction to volleyball.

“At about 2 or 3, she would play pepper with a binky in her mouth, with all the players,” Karla recalled. “She would dance with some of our Samoan girls. Bill Eisenwinter (then the NIC men’s and women’s soccer coach) would set up cones and make her do agility training. She was definitely raised in the gym.”

Until last year, Karla had been Klaire’s club volleyball coach from fourth grade on. Karla said she did this in part to control the practice schedule — she didn’t want Klaire to have to choose between ballet and volleyball.

Kari Chavez was her club coach last season with the Renovators, a Spokane-based team. But before that, Chavez was Klaire’s recruiting coordinator. Chavez is area director for Washington and Idaho and co-national director for volleyball, for National Scouting Report, a recruiting service for volleyball as well as other sports.

Chavez knew Grand Canyon coach Tim Nollan from back when he was an assistant at Pepperdine, and Chavez was an assistant at Gonzaga. Nollan later was head coach at USC, and is in his third season as head coach of the Lopes.

“When the coach at Grand Canyon texted me that he got the job, I asked him if he needed a 2019 setter and he said yes and I said “Great, I’ll send you over her profile,’” Chavez said, referring to Mitchell. “And he loved her, and the first time he could see her play he was sold, and basically camped out on her court every match she played, any tournaments that we were at that he was at too. He was just sold the first time he saw her.

“But she sold herself.”

Playing volleyball, her ballet training is most evident in her jumping ability and her body control.

“That kid is just the most phenomenal athlete I’ve coached in 22 years of coaching,” Chavez said. “She’s the best all-around athlete I’ve ever had. She’s the smartest kid I’ve ever had. She can read the blockers when she’s jumping in the air to set. She sees where the blockers go, and she goes the opposite way. She’s able to draw a block by what she does with her body and trick them into going where she looks like she’s going, and then throws it the other way. Her being able to fool the blockers is very elite.”

Klaire said her first scholarship offer in volleyball came from the University of Idaho, when she was in the eighth grade. She said her final three schools were GCU, Boise State and Long Beach State, where she had attended volleyball camp for two summers.

While in Arizona over spring break her sophomore year, her dad suggested checking out Grand Canyon University. She met with Nollan during her unofficial visit, he offered her a scholarship, and she committed a couple weeks later.

“She absolutely had bigger schools after her,” Chavez said. “And even after she committed, bigger schools talked to her coach, Tim, and said ‘Wow, how did you get her? We wanted her.’

“She absolutely could have played at any school in the country, because she can play defense, she’s not a detriment on the block (her jumping ability makes up for being shorter than the preferred height for setters at the highest level), she controls the tempo ...

“I think Grand Canyon is one of the most up-and-coming volleyball programs in the country, because of the staff they have, and the resources. She bought into a vision that Grand Canyon is going to be amazing in volleyball.”

Klaire hopes to become a volleyball coach, and Chavez says because she’s a student of the game, “She’s going to be a great coach someday.”

“I danced ... I never danced like Klaire,” Karla said. “I set ... I never set like Klaire.”

AROUND CHRISTMAS of 2016, Klaire was asked to dance in a TV commercial for a local Christian group. Friends and family gathered to watch.

“She hadn’t danced in a year and a half, put a pair of point shoes on and ... she danced for three hours in bare feet and point shoes, and was stunning,” Karla recalled. “She was amazing even then. That made me teary. She had not danced, or taken a lesson, since Labor Day weekend going into her freshman year.

“It was kind of a last hurrah day.”

Klein was invited to the commercial shoot.

“I gave her some steps to do, and she just took it over and she did her own thing. It was beautiful,” she said. “That’s how talented she was ... or is.”

Klaire has not danced since.

Through the wonders of social media, Klaire still keeps in contact with many of the other ballerinas she met in New York City. The ballet school back there still emails her mom, just in case ...

Any chance for a comeback as a ballerina?

“I’m retired now,” Klaire says.