University of Tennessee Athletics
2016 Volleyball: What I Did On Summer Vacation
August 05, 2016 | Volleyball
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — It’s been a busy summer for the Tennessee volleyball program as much of the team spent the months in summer school and preparing for the upcoming season.
Senior Raina Hembry and junior Kelsey Bawcombe both had important journeys over the break, with Hembry going to Brazil with the VOLeader Academy and Bawcombe interviewing with major accounting firms for her internship.
Hembry was the volleyball team’s representative in the VOLeaders Academy, a new leadership and service-based training program that traveled to Rio de Janeiro a few weeks before the Olympic Games. She was one of 14 student-athletes in the group for the 10-day journey in Brazil.
The VOLeaders worked with sport non-profit organizations and children throughout the area. Hembry took her first boxing and jujitsu lessons from local kids who had one or two years of experience in the discipline themselves.
“Sports is a universal language,” Hembry said. “You don’t have to know the same language or like the same thing. As long as you like sport or like to exercise, you can do anything. I was running with kids half my size — and I was 12 or 13 years older than them — and having just as much fun as them. It’s something where you can go anywhere and bond with people around you.”
The VOLeaders Academy was a joint partnership between the UT Center for Leadership and Service: the Center for Sport, Peace and Society; and the Department of Athletics.
“VOLeaders was successful and something I would like to be a part of, and I don’t think the inaugural class is finished just yet,” Hembry said. “I want to be part of this next class. I want to come back after I graduate and see that they’re doing great things with those students and still going abroad and spreading their knowledge to the world.”
FUTURE PLANS
Bawcombe took a much shorter trip to Atlanta and Texas to interview with accounting firms in preparation for her internship next summer.
“I saw the offices, talked about who some of their clients were, talked about what a day in the life would be like if I worked there,” Bawcombe said. “It was good to see Atlanta because I’ll be moving there, and I haven’t seen been there a lot since I’m from California. It was good to see what environment I’d be in in the future.”
Bawcombe, an accounting major, has her sights set on interning — and later working full time — at a top-four accounting firm such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC. She was a member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll last season.
“It’s a good place to start,” Bawcombe said. “Hopefully, I’ll just love it and want to stick with it. That’s what I’m interested in right now.”
SUMMER SCHOOL SUMMER
With the Joan Cronan Volleyball Center wrapping up its second year, team members spent a majority of the summer in Knoxville taking classes and running their own training inside the program’s first volleyball-only facility.
The 19-member team has six new players on the roster prepared to start their first season in Orange and White. Freshmen include middle hitter Alyssa Andreno, defensive specialist Asha Phillips, setter Sedona Hansen and outside hitter Tessa Grubbs. Junior setter Mackenzie Cooler and defensive specialist Britney Vallez both came to Tennessee after transferring from the College of Charleston.
Can’t wait for the season? The Vols open official preseason camp on Aug. 8 and the season begins with the DISH Volleyball Classic on Aug. 26-27 at Thompson-Boling Arena.
