Olympic pro beach volleyball player Sarah Sponcil went to Kenya last month. It’s a trip that was sparked by a gift received from a Kenyan opponent during the Tokyo Olympics that led to a friendship and a life-changing journey. Sponcil, 26, grew up in Phoenix and fell in love with volleyball as a very young girl. She played indoors and beach at Loyola Marymount and transferred to UCLA, where she played indoors again and also starred on the sand, winning two NCAA beach national championships. She went to the Tokyo Olympics with Kelly Cheng, where they tied for ninth. This season Sponcil and Terese Cannon are coming off their two best finishes of their partnership, a third at AVP Huntington Beach last month just a few days after she got back from Kenya, and then a second place Sunday at the Volleyball World Ostrava Elite16. This is the first of three stories by her about going to Kenya:
By Sarah Sponcil for VolleyballMag.com
It is Saturday, May 5, 2023, and I am boarding another plane for a long flight to a destination I have never visited, but a place I know I was meant to visit.
Throughout my personal and professional life, I have boarded hundreds of planes bound for countless destinations. Some have been with family on vacations ranging from the beautiful beaches in Hawaii and Florida, to Disney World and the Colorado mountains. On other occasions, it has been in fulfillment of my dream to be a professional volleyball athlete traveling throughout the USA as a student-athlete at Loyola Marymount University and UCLA, and as a professional volleyball athlete traveling to over 20 countries on five continents. All of these trips had several things in common. First, the trips were with family, whether that family was my parents and sister, or my teammates, who I also considered family. Second, I knew we would be staying in a great hotel, seeing the sights, and eating in great restaurants. Third, I knew we would be having fun,
Every flight has with it a mixture of both anxiety and excitement, but this was different. It would be to a destination 9,700 miles from my home in California. It would take 36 hours door to door to get there, making it by far the longest journey of either my personal or professional life. But there was no anxiety, only pure energy, and adrenaline. There would be no luxury hotels, no pool or beach time, no rides to rush to. It was a destination that I had never thought to visit before. It was, however, a…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Volleyballmag.com…