By Kyle Coppola
Scoring Big in Basketball and Academics
Natalie Doan
Mount Dora Christian Academy senior basketball star Natalie Doan wasn’t always a standout athlete.
“I started playing recreation basketball with my brother. I wasn’t good at
all. I only scored four points the entire first season I played,” says Natalie, who was introduced to the sport in 6th grade.
She soon discovered the valuable lesson: Practice makes progress.
“I just kept practicing, and I also like to work out,” Natalie says. “The more I work out, the better stamina I have on the court, so that improved too.”
Her dedication paid off in her sophomore year, a breakout season that set the stage for her being named team captain as a junior.
Natalie is also a standout student, maintaining an impressive 4.3 weighted GPA, a feat she attributes to strong work ethic instilled by her parents.
“I know the value of hard work. My dad, Son Doan, was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. when he was 20 years old,” she says. “He worked hard, and so did my mother, Denise Dang. They’ve taught me that if you work hard at something, it pays off.”
That dedication paid off in a big way. From scoring only four points in 6th grade, Natalie was named the Class 1A District 6 Player of the Year as a sophomore, and again in her junior year season when she scored an impressive 219 points. Her transformation into one of the team’s key leaders speaks volumes about her determination.
Besides hard work and dedication, Natalie also credits her success to her coach Perry Petruccelli.
“He’s an amazing coach,” she says. “He stays after practice so I can shoot around and he sacrifices a lot of time for us.”
Natalie’s advice for younger athletes: “Trust in your work. Trust that the hours you put into anything will pay off. I wasn’t very good at basketball when I started, but now I’m a team captain. You can do anything you put your mind to.”
After graduation, Natalie plans to continue her leadership on a new stage: the United States Merchant Marine Academy.
“I plan on going into Military Marine Transportation,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to explore the world, and what better way than to get paid to travel and serve the country.”
Photos: Nicole Hamel
Kyle Coppola was born in Newton, Massachusetts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications from Curry College in 2016. After traveling to Florida on a family vacation, he decided he could not get enough of the warm weather and made the move from snowy Massachusetts to central Florida 8 years ago.
For the last decade Kyle has gained valuable experience in social media content creation, marketing and sales, writing, video production, sports announcing and even broadcasting for local radio stations, such as FM 102.9 in The Villages and FM 91.5 in Massachusetts. Every year he volunteers at The Villages Charter High School as a play-by-play sports announcer for the football games as well as a public address announcer for the basketball games, including the annual Battle at The Villages Tournament.
Outside the office Kyle is a husband and father to two beautiful girls along with their cat. In his spare time he likes to spend time with his family, travel, play golf and swim. He is also a huge sports junkie and even bigger motorsports fan and loves to attend racing events when he can.
