An individual competitor and a team player. Intense yet unassuming. Swaggering yet humble. These are the words that describe senior Marie Fleming, a three-sport varsity athlete. Throughout all of her athletic successes, Fleming has stayed true to her values and picked up some new ones along the way.

Fleming, who plays volleyball, basketball and tennis, was brought up in an athletic family. Her father, along with her two Division I tennis-playing siblings, taught her how to play tennis from an early age, fostering in her a love for competition and a strong work ethic. She also played basketball in her elementary school years, and while she played soccer in the fall of her freshman year, she switched to volleyball as a sophomore.

Although Fleming has considered herself first and foremost to be a tennis player, being on the volleyball and basketball teams has changed her approach to athletics over the years.

“During sophomore year, I thought about quitting the other sports and just focusing on tennis, but now I’m using the sports as means to get ready for tennis. It’s been a better experience with teammates,” she said. “Growing up with an individual mindset of wanting to win for tennis has made me have a lot of drive in my team sports. At the same time, the team sports allowed me to have a drive for my whole team.”

Whether it be fall, winter or spring, Fleming has racked up a number of athletic accomplishments over the years. She has been on a consistently high-performing volleyball team, which this year defeated bitter rival Newton North to advance to the semifinals of the state tournament. In the winter, she and five other seniors helped lead the basketball team to one of its best records in years, including a five-game win streak to kick off the season. And in tennis, according to Fleming, she has only lost five times out of the 60-plus matches in her entire high school career, three of them in deep rounds of the state tournament. What is even more remarkable is that Fleming has held the title of No. 1 singles player on the tennis team every season she played, even as a freshman.

All of this success could translate into receiving the Female Athlete of the Year award at the upcoming Varsity Banquet later this month.

“Since freshman year, I’ve always wanted it. I think if I got it, it would feel like all of that hard work I’ve put in every single season would come to a point,” she said. “It would mean a lot to me.”

Fleming has already received much praise from her coaches over the years, including girls tennis assistant coach Debby Notman.

“I think she’s a very lovely young gal. She’s a dream person to have on the team because she does her job in a super-A way, which is play hard, be a team contributor and support one another. And she wins a lot,” Notman said. “She has a very good attitude. She’s an accomplished, accomplished athlete, and we’re only talking about tennis.”

“I’ve been called the backbone or glue of my team sports. I mediate a lot of things,” Fleming said. “Also, I’m very consistent; maybe not the star player, but I can promise to be consistent all the time.”

She said for tennis, “I’m a leader. I do the warmup, I do the encouragement speech. I lead by example and I’m almost guaranteed the win every time.”

Fleming said she received offers to play tennis at Division I schools like UConn, Villanova, Fairfield, Providence and Sacred Heart but ended up choosing Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., which fields joint sports teams with nearby Pomona College. Fleming said she made an important investment by deciding to attend Pitzer.

“My education is more important than whether or not I’ll have the pride of playing Division I tennis,” she said. “I decided that I could play No. 1 at Pomona-Pitzer, get tough competition at that position, but also be able to have a great education.”

Fleming plans to major in environmental science and hopes to play professionally after she graduates. Looking back, she cited her experiences in sports as having the most impact on her life.

“My personal motto used to be ‘he who walks alone walks the farthest.’ That’s keeping myself on the right track. That was my tennis mentality, that it’s all about you,” she said. “Now that I’ve played on teams, and I loved that experience so much, I can apply what I have to a team, and that’s almost more powerful than being an individual and doing really well.”

Colby Bermel can be contacted at [email protected].