Yon’s responsibilities in her internship include social media and program planning, and she’s helped increase “our social media following and engagement significantly since May, creating the most-liked individual posts on our IG account to date,” VandeHoef-Gunn said. “She uses such creativity and collaboration to carry out tasks, and we are fortunate to have her in service to our student-athletes.”
Eventually, Yon said, she hopes to become an assistant athletics director for student-athlete development or academic coordinating. She’s been applying for jobs as an academic adviser, figuring she’ll start there “and then move up the ranks,” said Yon, who earned a bachelor’s degree in communications/public relations from West Florida.
She’s not interested in playing volleyball professionally. “Absolutely not,” Yon said, laughing. “My knees, my back, my shoulders cannot handle that.”
When she arrived at UVA, Yon didn’t know which career path she would want to follow, but through her master’s program she “started really getting involved with the student-development side and fell in love with college athletics,” Wells said.
Yon played a leading role in coordinating and promoting the match Virginia played early this month at Memorial Gymnasium to raise awareness about mental health for student-athletes.
“On top of the academic workload she continues to take, she’s also finding ways to make an impact and get networking and real job experience,” Wells said. “To me, that’s everything that’s UVA, and I’m really proud of her for taking advantage of that.”
In her internship, Yon divides her time between the McCue Center and John Paul Jones Arena. She’s attended basketball games at JPJ and regularly eats dinner at the dining hall, but she’s never played volleyball there.
That will change Sunday. In the first-ever volleyball match at JPJ, UVA will take on Virginia Tech at 2 p.m. (At its customary home, Mem Gym, Virginia fell 3-1 to Wake Forest on Friday night.)
“I’m so excited,” Yon said about the venue for this Commonwealth Clash showdown.
So is Wells, who’s in her third season at UVA. “I’m just really proud and humbled by the number of people that have worked really hard to make sure this is a first-class event for all our student-athletes and the community,” she said.
Early in her UVA career, Yon said, she learned that a match at JPJ was a possibility. “I just didn’t think it was…