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Westminster Christian Academy senior Nevan Shively used his love of video editing to get him through some of the toughest days of his life. Now he’s hoping to use that passion as a light to others.

“In seventh grade, I saw some of these videos on YouTube where they were, like, how to make this disappearance effect with free software,� Shively said. “And so, I would just follow tutorials and I really got into kind of making those little effects, and eventually that led me to get some more advanced editing software.�

Shively, Westminster’s 2025 Post-Dispatch Scholar Athlete, plans on making a career out of those skills as either a movie special effects editor or a video game designer.

What Shively — the starting setter on the Wildcats boys volleyball team and also a forward on the boys soccer team — has gone through medically and his being able to overcome it has the makings of a Hollywood script.

In eighth grade, Shively noticed pain in his hip and trouble running while playing soccer. He was diagnosed with Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease, a childhood hip condition where blood flow is cut off from the bone leading to the decay of the bone.

“The bone had started collapsing,� Shively said.

After an unsuccessful surgery in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, he was referred to a specialist in Baltimore. Shively travelled to Maryland three different times. The first trip was the initial consultation, and the last two trips were for surgeries.

“The first surgery, they basically were trying to reconstruct the hip,� Shively said. “So, they took it out of the socket and then kind of, like, tried to reshape it into a good bowl shape again. And then they put on an external fixation device, which is basically just a bunch of metal rods that kind of go into various places in your bones. And I had to wear that for three months.�

Unfortunately, that course of treatment didn’t work, so Shively had to return to Baltimore for the second surgery, which was a hip replacement.

The road back was long.

“It was very hard to see progress, just because, like, my other leg, I had been over-compensating with it a lot, and so my muscles didn’t even really remember how to, like, work properly,� Shively said. “So, it was really hard to train them. And all my different physical therapists had to try a whole bunch of different approaches and stuff to try and find something to work.�

Even as Shively made progress, doctors feared his athletic career was over. But Shively was determined to play again, and not only did he return to the volleyball court but became the Wildcats starting setter.

He made an immediate impact on Westminster volleyball coach Colton Albers, who was looking for someone to run his offense.

“Clearly he was going to be somebody that not only could handle the athletic pressure, especially after recovering and rehabilitating from (the hip), but somebody that I could also know that was coachable and that had the mental capacities to handle a faster-paced game,� Albers said. “So, before his junior year, he had not really walked into the role of a varsity setter, and then here I was ready to trust him that first game junior year to be on the court. He handled that so well. The transition for him was seamless.�

Albers said Shively has even acted as an assistant setter coach preparing the program’s younger setters to take over next year.

Shively also returned to the soccer pitch. While he admitted he wasn’t the player he was before, he said it felt good to get back and compete.

“He was a great teammate,� Westminster soccer coach Dan Legters said. “They saw the way he worked. They saw how he had to sacrifice, literally, his body. And they knew he was out there, you know, in some respect, fearless.�

Proving the doubters wrong has given Shively a mature perspective.

“When all these surgeries didn’t work, and I was like looking at having to get a hip replacement, everything I had heard up at that point said like you can only do rowing, like no other sports with a hip replacement,� Shively said. “And so, I was kind of like thinking at that point, not going to do sports again. And so, being able to do both of those again, like to pretty much my full ability, has been pretty cool.�

And Shively hasn’t held back.

“I think it was a full-on challenge, and then someone comes in and it’s a shoulder-to-shoulder contact, body-to-body and he ends up on the ground,� Legters said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, get up. Get up.’ And then he gets up and … then keeps going. I kind of looked at my assistant coach and said, all right, he’s OK.�

Albers said Shively dives on the floor more than anyone else on the team.

“I look at him, and I say you cannot give your mother any more gray hairs sitting in the stands out there,� Albers said. “And she’s like, you know, watching him lay out, but she also gets it too, that despite his challenges he doesn’t let that hold him back.�

One thing that helped Shively through the ups and downs of his hip condition was video editing.

“At one point in my video storytelling class, I had to miss a week or two of school for surgery, and, like, in the hotel room after I had that surgery when I was all laid up and, like, I couldn’t do anything, I was still able to edit a video for that class,� Shively said. “It kind of helps you not think about what you’re not able to do as much.�

Shively’s video storytelling class teacher Han Kim said he is a special student.

“I’ve been here 25 years, so I see a lot of kids receiving these recognitions,� Kim said. “But what really, you know, is underneath it all is he’s just great kid, you know, and great heart, and he has a good mindset. He’s not tainted and he looks at the world with enthusiasm and positivity. And so that’s the part that people not might see from all this.�

Shively is looking to take his video editing skills to the next level at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, where he will study visual effects and game design.

He will bring an impressive resume with him. Shively was a spirit week leader at Westminster for the winning film project the last two years and he was part of the winning team for the national high school 48-hour film competition earlier this year.

Shively said the national competition was fun.

“You’re given the laptops on Friday night at 7 o’clock and then you have until Sunday at the same time to fully, like, make and edit the whole film,� Shively said. “And then you compete against all the other people. So, we competed in the high school version of that, which was actually the first year that happened. So, there’s only like eight other people, but they were from across the whole United States, and our film ended up winning.�

Kim said Shively is always trying to be better.

“We talk about it all the time, especially in editing, you don’t just look back and say, OK, I’m done,� Kim said. “There’s always something to improve on, even when the deadline is there and then he has to submit a final cut. We always talk about what we can improve and how we could do better and be efficient at the process of the production.�

Aside from video editing, Shively is also a program leader for the school’s robotics team, known as the Cyborg Cats.

“I really started getting into it last year and I’ve been the main person that programs the robots,� Shively said. “So, I like make it so that you can use an Xbox controller to drive the robot rounds and make the arms move up and down.�

Shively also maintains a GPA north of 4.0.

Put the intelligence, the passion and the grit he has shown and his future is bright.

“He’s so he’s talented and so multifaceted,� Albers said. “He can kind of go whichever direction he wants to.�