Chaparral High's Bella Rittenberg carries unique perspective in volleyball

Bella Rittenberg stands with her family in front of balloons in a gym.

Oct. 23, 2022 2:08 PM PT

He’d wander out from his post behind Chaparral High’s snack bar, and Maria Rittenberg would see her son sitting down not in the home stands but in the visiting bleachers, striking up a conversation with anyone he could find.

“That’s my sister over there, No. 16,” Sebastian Rittenberg would say, pointing to Chaparral standout Bella Rittenberg, who has committed to the University of Pennsylvania volleyball program. “You gotta cheer for her!”

Why would they cheer for Bella? They were visiting fans. Yet there was no stopping Sebastian, Bella’s 22-year-old brother with autism who loves his sister more than anything and has never been afraid to show it.

When their grandmother died when they were younger, there was Bella, sitting with Sebastian and watching their favorite movie, “Sleeping Beauty.” When he fell, cutting his knee open, there was Bella, bringing him to their mother. When he was assaulted in a first-grade bathroom, Maria telling the story of a boy who punched and kicked and ripped Sebastian’s shirt off, there was a young Bella, asking, “Why?”

“My yin, my yang,” Sebastian said of Bella. “My guardian angel.”

As she’s shaped them, the Chaparral senior and outside hitter has been shaped by her family — “little ducks,” her mother said, that do everything together. Bella has five siblings, four adopted, four with special needs. This past season, before Chaparral was eliminated by San Juan Hills in a Southern Section Division II playoff match Thursday, her family was the biggest cheer section at most home games, dancing for their sister, the team captain, like nobody was watching.

It’ll be tough to leave them when she heads to Penn. They’ve given Bella a unique perspective on volleyball — and life in general.

“A lot of people would get mad at someone if they kept messing up or they weren’t doing well,” Rittenberg said. “But I wouldn’t … we’re all human. I think I’ve learned that from my family.”

There’s Sebastian, who lives out loud. There’s Harley, the caring 28-year-old who met Maria at 16 through a court-appointed special advocates program. There’s the helpful 18-year-old Nathaniel, who has epilepsy; the friendly 17-year-old Natalie, who has an intellectual disability; the doting 15-year-old Naudia, who has developmental delays, all three siblings adopted at once.

It’s an “insta-family,” Maria calls it. While it’s not always easy, they’ve touched Chaparral’s community, coach Gale Johnson’s favorite memories of the season seeing them cheer in the stands.

“It’s not that we’re going to drink lemonade,” Maria said, referencing the when-life-gives-you-lemons adage. “We’re going to make lemon-tinis, because if we’re going to live this life, we’re going to make it a party.”

Maria started Bella in volleyball to make sure her daughter didn’t get “lost in the shuffle” while taking care of Sebastian. And welcoming four more siblings might’ve seemed hard.

But Bella always wanted a bigger family. She’s always been proud of having siblings with special needs, Maria said — orchestrating intricate dance productions with costumes and wigs and choreography when she was younger, tossing her arm around her brothers and sisters at school, waving to them in the bleachers.

Now, don’t mistake her for a softie on the hardwood. Bella’s a “brute” of an outside hitter, as Sebastian described with a smile, unleashing a powerful hit. Yet she brings a more caring attitude as a leader.

“Some people get so down on themselves when they make mistakes or when things go wrong … but I feel just like she has this different perspective,” Johnson said. “So her lows never get too low, because she understands what life’s about.”

On Oct. 12, the team’s senior-night game against Great Oak, seniors and their families were welcomed one by one onto the court, walking out from under an arch of balloons to applause. When it came Bella’s turn, she and her family took a few steps — only for Sebastian to strut out in front, waving his arms and blowing extravagant kisses to the crowd like the star at the close of a play.

Not a care in the world, and Bella wouldn’t have it any other way. Sebastian is fully himself and her family is fully itself, and she loves it, because it’s made her who she is.

“Even though it’s different, [it’s] amazing, and I’m very lucky to have the parents and the siblings I do,” Bella said.