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Nicholas Trebisacci
Mrs. Oliveira
College Writing
17 January 2017
The Belle of the Ball
Sunlight illuminating across her incandescent face, she swivels her head around to
observe the environment around her. Briefly looking down, she keeps her chin high as her
fashionable heels click against the chilled, concrete sidewalks. Waltzing by the parked cars, she
maintains great posture, with her back straight and her head high, she embodies a young princess
entering a ball, not a teeanger entering her dreary high school. A smile leaps gracefully across
her face, pearly white teeth emerging from her lips as her friends join with her. Each day she
repeats this elegant walking tradition, dressed in the trendiest of styles. Opening the double doors
into the Ward building, she transforms from the stylish high school student into a stunning
Disney princess patiently awaiting her ballroom dance.
Tale as old as time... Dakota Busch has been intrigued with sports, whether she is
playing the sport herself or watching from the sidelines, she immerses herself within the athletic
world (Dion). At five years old, Dakota suffered from nursemaids elbow, technically referred to
as radial head subluxation, where her elbow would suddenly dislocate. As treatment, her doctor
suggested she play tennis as it would help to strengthen her elbow. Eleven years later, Dakotas
passion for tennis turned into a lifestyle, joining a pristine competitive tennis team called the
United States Tennis Association (USTA). This team provides skilled tennis players the
opportunity to be recruited by colleges, while also improving their skills through great coaching.

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As true as it can be...unexpected conflicts between Dakota and her teammates mom
arose, causing problems between Dakota and the coach (Dion). In a short amount of time,
Dakota improved her tennis skills greatly, but her coaching lessons shortened. As a result,
Dakota decided to casually play tennis with her other friend, Ella, to practice. However, when
Ellas coach attended one of their games unanticipatedly, drama began, since it seemed like
Dakota was betraying her coach at USTA to practice with a different one. When her teammates
mom heard of her actions, she told the coach, who then kicked Dakota off the team. Dakota
moved on with her life, continuing to play tennis, but for her high school team instead. However,
the drama continued when her old coach and teammates attended her matches, harassing her. The
people she once called close friends became a source of discomfort and disappointment in her
life. It like affected me for a long time. When I see him now I still get anxiety, Dakota
admitted, however, she persevered through the obstacle, while maintaining her position as top
three in the state for tennis (Busch).
Her athletic ability is not the only characteristic Dakota possesses. Her immense
beauty, similar to a princesss, gained her a semi finalist spot in the Miss Teen USA
competition, where she won a twenty-nine thousand dollar prize in scholarship money (Dion).
Most pageant-goers practice for months and even years before entering a prestigious pageant
such as Miss Teen USA, but not Dakota. She would always tease her mom saying she would
enter a pageant and win money, but one day she randomly signed up and did a phone
interview putting the plan into action (Busch). Shortly after the phone interview, she was
accepted into the pageant. After the acceptance, Dakota attended classes on how to walk and
how to do an interview and then just did it, and did it well for her first time, becoming a

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semi-finalist (Busch). The pageant extended over a three day weekend, starting on a Friday and
ending on Sunday. On the first day, there was an interview with the judges, where they asked
Dakota, and the rest of the pageant members, questions based on a questionnaire the contestants
completed prior to the competition.
After this interview, the preliminary round took place, where Dakota performed her opening
number and competed in the swimsuit and evening gown section of the pageant. The following
day, she, and the other pageant members, stood on stage in their evening gowns, as the judges
selected the top ten finalists. After making it into the top ten, she competed in the swimsuit
portion again, strutting her way into the top five. Dakota then had to complete the clich question
and answer segment of the pageant, where she surprisingly did not answer each question with
world peace or ending world hunger. She may not have become Miss Teen USA, but the
scholarship money she earned will help her greatly in her near future.
Bittersweet and strange, Dakota places massive amounts of pressure on herself to be
the best each and every day (Dion). At her teams State semifinals match, nerves boiled up inside
of her, and she began telling herself she had no other option than to win the match.
Unfortunately, her nerves negatively affected her skills, and ultimately, she was defeated. She
has a hard time dealing with pressure not only from tennis specifically, but in every aspect of
life (Busch). The personality she embodies makes her want to be the very best at what she does,
adding elements of unneeded pressure and stress. For example, she strives to be exemplary in her
academics, achieving high honor roll status each semester. Moving forward, I have to calm
down and stop stressing about the little things in life (Busch).

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Certain as the sun rising in the East, Dakotas love for sports is undeniable, leading to
her interest in sports broadcasting as a career (Dion). In college, she wants to major in sports
broadcasting, but she might double major in advertising...because there arent a lot of jobs in
the sports broadcasting field, making it a hard career to pursue. She enjoys not only the sports
she plays, and excels at, but all sports in general, from football to baseball (Busch). As a sports
broadcaster she would stand on the sidelines of the games and interview the players after a great
win or a hard defeat. Dakotas not shy of the spotlight either, in fact, she like[s] being in front of
a camera giving her an upper hand in her future career (Busch).
A tale as old as time and a song as old as rhyme transported Dakota into a realm of
magic and romance as a young child, leading to her aspiration of becoming the dashing Disney
princess, Belle (Dion). Dakota not only loved the soundtrack, but also the message of the story:
to never judge a person based on her appearance, a rule Dakota tries to live by. She believes in a
world where everyone deserves a chance at true love, just like beauty and the beast (Dion).

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Works Cited
Busch, Dakota. Personal interview. 17 Nov. 2016.
Dion, Celine. Beauty and the Beast. Beauty and the Beast Soundtrack, Walt Disney
Pictures, 1991.