By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Classes and volleyball dominate her waking hours, leaving Abby Tadder little time for anything else during the school year. Still, she’d like to have fewer holes in her schedule.
“Right now I have a little too much free time during the first week of school,” said Tadder, an economics major who’s a standout middle blocker on the University of Virginia volleyball team. “I’ve been going a little crazy. I know school is going to get busy, and I know volleyball is going to get busy, but I like to be super involved.”
Tadder, who’s minoring in general business, belongs to Delta Gamma sorority, and she had a fellowship with UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center during the 2022-23 academic year. When she’s home in California, Tadder helps coach with the club she played for.
“I always tell Abby that she probably needs to calm down a little bit, that she can’t do it all, and then she consistently proves me wrong,” Virginia head volleyball coach Shannon Wells said, laughing. “I just worry about managing her stress load more than anything else, but she’s just so determined to be successful in all aspects of life, and she’s got an incredible work ethic, which I think is pretty unique, and just a drive to be great. There’s nothing that kid won’t do and can’t do. I feel like we’re blessed to have her in our program, and she’s someone that I really think is a great model for who we want to be and how we want to represent as UVA volleyball players.”
Tadder grew up in San Diego, blissfully unaware of UVA. She remembers receiving a questionnaire from the Cavaliers’ coaching staff.
“I was going through my emails with my parents,” Tadder said, “and I was like, ‘Oh, Virginia. Never heard of that. I guess it’s just another school, and I’ll keep it on my radar.’ But my parents were like, ‘That’s such a great school. You have to talk to them.’ And then I came out here, did camp, and I loved it.”
During her official visit to UVA, Tadder texted her mom from Charlottesville. “I was like, ‘This is the place for me. I just love it so much.’ ”
Grace Turner, one of Tadder’s teammates at Virginia in 2021 and ’22, now plays professionally for a club in Seville, Spain. She remembers Tadder’s visit to UVA.
“I knew she was from San Diego,” Turner said, “and the thought of coming to UVA was a bit scary because of the…