Playing On Sports Futures: Reese Bates
I report on the collegiate experiences of Mo. and Ks. athletes. This is the first installment of my "Futures" series. Each edition will feature someone who has yet to compete, but will soon.
Like all young girls, Reese Bates had many dreams. Two of them were to be a Division I athlete and to compete in the Olympics. One of those is about to be a reality. Reese, a Blue Valley Southwest graduate, is now involved with preseason practice with the Butler University Volleyball Team.
It was inevitable that she would be introduced to sports. Her mother, Shannon, played volleyball and ran track at Wichita State while her father, Randy, played basketball and tennis at Bethany College. Swimming to tennis to ballet. And many others. Each with its own timeline, with ballet starting at age three and volleyball starting at age eight. All of that lasted until age 13 with the inevitable collision of schedules. Reese selected volleyball. Or, did volleyball select Reese?
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Balancing Life
Life throws many things at you that take time. And there are those, such as Reese, who throw more things into that un-expandable 24 hours of each day. Reese wanted volleyball. Lots of volleyball. She also wanted academics. Very wisely, Reese said:
“No matter how long someone plays on the court, it always comes to an end. Academics is what is used through volleyball and beyond.”
The Kansas Volleyball Association took notice and made Reese a four time All-Academic First Team honoree. Yes, a FourPete.
This is where time management is indispensable. There would be many, many hours in the garage gym. Those, of course are in addition to practices for her club and high school teams. Few understand how many extra hours the top athletes put in when no one else is looking. There are two things about when no one is looking. No. One, character is what you do when no one is looking, and No. Two, the work you put in when no one is looking is what gets you ahead. But time is also needed for academics. And for friends and family. And for oneself. All of that is balanced with superior time management. Time management not only allows the shoehorning of more into a day, but in a less stressful way.
Proper balance is the ability to keep more than one thing in the air while maintaining a smile.
The Garage
When you speak with Reese, or someone who knows her, you will hear about “The Garage”. She has spent an unknown number of hours in that garage. Placing the ball precisely up the wall. Many iterations of various drills, some involving standing on a board that is balancing on a roller. During the Covid era, the time in the garage increased to six to eight hours a day. Again, it’s what you do when no one is looking that gets you ahead. To improve concentration, she would have friends yell, wave their arms and put hands in front of her face while she continued to control the ball. You perform drills to learn and improve, and you do more drills to maintain what you learned. And then you drill some more. And then you start over and drill more. Stef Curry shoots 300 to 500 shots AFTER practice. It’s the same thing. You can’t just want to get better, you have to put in the work.
When you are around Reese, you will also hear:
Work twice as hard.
Produce twice the results.
To make half the mistakes
Some question the thousands of repetitions. But, those repetitions merge the mental and the physical. They improve hand eye coordination, multitasking, focus, shoulder and wrist strength, endurance, pushing through pain, balance, setting, and rhythm. If it takes that much to describe, just think about actually doing it. Over and over. The breadth and depth that comes with many repetitions of a wide variety of drills leads to versatility. Reese started her high school career as a defensive specialist before becoming a setter and a hitter. Going forward into college play, she will work as the libero and defensive specialist.
The garage isn’t just about Reese. She lights up when she talks about helping a younger girl develop her love for volleyball. One way she does that is to share her time and her garage with a young girl who is where Reese was a decade ago. Having had good role models, she wants to pass that on to the next generation of spikers and setters
It’s not enough to just do drills. She works hard on visualizing what she wants the results to be. She has a clear picture in her mind of what she wants the results to look like. You also have to surround yourself with the right people. Friends. Best friends. Family. Role models. All must be supportive and have positive mindsets. They don’t just appear. You have to look for them.
The Results of Hard Work
People have taken notice. This is a partial list of awards in addition to the KVA All-Academic four-pete noted above:
KC Metro Sports All-Star Team
HyVee-Spectrum Athlete of the Week
Four-Time AVCA Phenom
Four-Time Top 100 Prep Volleyball honoree in Kansas
National Honor Society
Chinese National Honor Society
Reese also helped lead her Club Team in winning the USAV 18U National Division National Championship this past April.
Of all the awards, there is one that stands out the most to Reese. First, a bit about the organization that presents this award. WIN for KC is a part of the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission & Foundation. WIN for KC envisions a community where sport ignites the life of every woman and girl. In other words, they do great work. You can learn more about WIN for KC here.
WIN for KC presented Reese with the 2023 Children’s Mercy Rising Star Award. See why Kerri Walsh-Jennings agrees. This is why she was honored. Please don’t miss that video!
On to Butler
The choice of a college can be difficult. When you add the athletic piece to the academic, it goes from from two dimensional to three dimensional. There are a lot of moving parts. One of those is the coach. Reese drew interest from many coaches. Then she met up with Kyle Shondell. Kyle comes from a large coaching family tree. His grandfather founded the Ball State Men’s and Women’s Volleyball programs. His father is the current coach at Purdue, where his uncle is an assistant coach. Coach Shondell is in his first year as the Butler coach. And Reese was Coach Shondell’s first commitment to be a Bulldog. When I asked Coach Shondell about Reese, this is how he responded:
We are ecstatic to add Reese to the Butler family! Her work ethic and love for our game make her an awesome cultural addition to Bulldog Volleyball and her ball control abilities will be an instant boost to our backcourt.”
Reese’s decision also involved the campus and volleyball facilities. And of course, the academics. Reese is embarking on a Biochemistry major, with a minor in Chinese. Another example of juggling multiple things.
Competing in the Big East Conference was also a factor. Creighton is a defending conference co-champion. The Bluejay’s have seven Kansas City area athletes on their roster. One is Ava TeStrake, a close friend of Reese’s. When I asked about meeting up with her friend on the court once again, she replied that she couldn’t wait to compete with Ava. That is what competitors do. They compete. Even when they are friends.
So, when and where does the season start? It starts at home in the familiar confines of Hinkle Fieldhouse. Three other schools will be in town to kick off the season in the Bulldog Brawl. Butler’s first opponent is Kent State on August 25th. It’s not the OK Corral, but someone from Kansas will understand the meaning of the match starting at High Noon.
And that match with Creighton and all of those former teammates and competitors from home? Butler will entertain Creighton at 6:00 on Friday, September 22. You have heard that all games are the same. One at a time. But, that’s not true. That will be a special evening for a lot of volleyball athletes.
Going off to college is a big step. Especially, when it involves competing in the sport you love. But Reese has prepared physically and mentally for this moment. Thoughtful repetitions and thoughtful forethought. The first of two major athletic goals becomes a reality in less than ten days.
If you know of an athlete you would like to have featured as a Playing On Sports Future, please let me know. You can find more information here. Email me at PlayingOnSports@gmail.com.
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