Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Intercontinental Athletic Adventures
TIGER SPORTS BENEFITS FROM SPANISH CONNECTION
SPORTS EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of an ongoing series highlighting top sports stories for the 2010-19 decade at Prairie Grove High School and its alumni.
PRAIRIE GROVE — Prairie Grove volleyball coach Mat Stewart was going through the roster describing his lineup in the fall of 2018 when he realized history began repeating itself.
“And then we have another senior, our setter, Emma Maraver, she is a move-in from Spain, and she’s definitely helped us a lot,” Stewart said. “They like volleyball in Spain so she’s helped us.”
Asked if Emma was the younger sibling of Maria Maraver, who played volleyball and tennis as a foreign exchange student attending Prairie Grove earlier in the decade, Stewart verified that she was indeed.
“This is little sister. They come over here and live with their aunt during their senior year,” Stewart said. “We’re glad she’s a volleyball player. Her sister was a tennis player.”
While attending Prairie Grove High School, the Maravers each lived with their aunt Sarah McKenzie at Prairie Grove. They were seven hours behind their family in Spain and their parents were often going to bed when Maria found free time to make calls. Five years later Emma dealt with the same challenge and when their parents were trying to call from Spain both girls were usually going to school.
The girls’ mother, Dana Sue Knowles, grew up locally and graduated from PGHS in the 1980s before moving to Chicago to attend college where she met and fell in love with her neighbor working on his Master’s Degree.
That dashing Spaniard, Jose, became her husband once the couple finished college and moved to Spain where they were wed. They have been married for 28 years with four children born to their union: Alex, 27; Maria, 24; Emma, 19; and Carla, 17.
The girls were raised in a dual-language household. Jose’s fluency enables him to speak plus read and write in two languages. Dana also learned to speak, read and write Spanish in addition to her native English.
In a unique family dynamic, mom tends to speak in her native English while dad converses in his first language, Spanish.
“We learn English when we’re young,” Emma said acknowledging growing up in Spain that European Spanish is their first language, yet they also study and converse in English.
“We speak it, but we learn the grammatics pretty young,” Emma said.
Sports aren’t offered for school kids in Spain yet both girls jumped into the role of student/athlete and each enjoyed the athletic adventure afforded them at Prairie Grove.
“We don’t have sports in school in Spain so this is new for me,” Maria said. “I love to play tennis, all the family plays. I like that it’s different than what I have in Spain, the people are really nice, too.”
Maria split time between both fall sports five years before Emma made her trans-Atlantic leap. In addition to tennis, Maria also went out for volleyball during her Tiger tenure, playing for former Lady Tiger head coach Hannah McDonald during the 2013 season.
Maria didn’t need long to establish herself as the Tigers’ No. 1 tennis player in girls singles competition. She won the District 4A-1 championship and advanced to the 4A state tournament semifinal before eventually placing fourth.
Endued with a sense of merriment Maria was reluctant to tell jokes in English because of her accent. She admitted she was more comfortable speaking Spanish yet a classmate at Prairie Grove, Steppan Clark, who was among her teammates on the Prairie Grove tennis team, observed, “She’s really funny and meshes well with the team. She fits right in and, oh, she’s our best player.”
During her senior year of 2018-2019, Emma explored the heritage imparted from her mother as well as following in Maria’s footsteps as a Prairie Grove Tiger.
Besides playing volleyball, Emma also played soccer at Prairie Grove. She scored 3 goals and contributed 2 assists during the 2019 soccer season which saw the Lady Tigers go 7-1 in conference play, win second place in the district tournament and reach the 4A State semifinal match. Prairie Grove sported a 19-6 record for the season.
Stephanie Mitchell served as assistant volleyball coach for 2018 and head girls soccer coach in 2019 at Prairie Grove. She coached Emma in both sports.
“Emma has such an outgoing bubbly personality. The girls absolutely love her,” Mitchell said. “She’s fun to be around.”
Prairie Grove’s climate features warmer temperatures and a lot more humidity than the girls were accustomed to in Spain, but that didn’t slow down their zest for enjoying life and sports.
“Emma’s never played soccer before, but she’s been around it,” Mitchell said during the 2019 season. “She’s coachable, easy to teach and eager to learn. She’s open to any position that I put her in.”
For Mitchell, the team experience became enhanced by simply having Emma on the roster.
“She makes it that more enjoyable by just being herself.”