Former vaulter now volleyball start at UF

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http://www.cstv.com/sports/w-volley/uwi ... 05aah.html

Little defender that could


By Dan Treat Independent Florida Alligator
Gainesville, FL (U-WIRE) -- You spot her out on the court with her blonde ponytail pulled tight, sporting orange and blue Nike Shox and the No. 2 sewn onto her back, and you may wonder, "How did she get out there?"

She stands at just 5-foot-7, if your program is to be believed, and many of those around her stand at 6-foot or above.

"This girl is a volleyball player?" you silently wonder. "There's no way."

When she is introduced as a starter from Austin, Texas, you become more confused. How can this girl possibly compete?

The match begins and the opposition's outside hitter drills a ball that is shooting towards the corner of the court, and she dives frantically to her left and completes a perfect pass to the setter, resulting in a Gators point.

"OK, now I get it," you think to yourself.

That likely won't be the last thing that surprises you about junior Rhian Davis, Gators defender extraordinaire.

"I like being the short, quirky, speedy little thing," Davis said.

A former pole vaulter, a walk-on, and a Gator almost by accident, Davis spent a majority of her first two years on the bench, learning from those around her.

"I think when you sign up for this you have that realization in the back of your head that you're not going to be the all-star," Davis said. "You're going to have to sit back and you're going to have to learn. I was never really disappointed in the fact that I wasn't playing because I knew that I still had a long way to come to earn that right of playing."

She may have had a long way to go on the court, but she already had come so far to be in Gainesville in first place.

And from someone whose own mother described her as "gritty", would you expect anything less?

Davis was actually more highly recruited in track than volleyball. She was the 2002 regional champion in the pole vault and finished second in the state of Texas that year with a vault of 11 feet 3 inches, a Bowie High School record, in addition to a 4.0 GPA when she graduated.





When Davis decided that she wanted to play elite level college volleyball, a twist of fate started her on the path to UF.

"In the recruiting process in high school, all kinds of schools will send you their camp pamphlets," Davis said. "And I said, 'Well, the first two camp things that I get, those will be the camps that I go to,' so Florida's was first and North Carolina's was second."

That fact may have been even more impressive to UF Coach Mary Wise, who singled her out as a spark plug in a Gators victory over Mississippi earlier this year

"Rhian is a player who obviously doesn't get a whole lot of attention because she was a former walk-on, who we met because she came to camp here," Wise said. "We get thousands of campers who come through here, and for her to kind of set herself apart, from Austin, Texas, to come here as a walk-on, she stepped up yesterday and was just nailing her serve."

As a walk-on, Davis' family had to pay tuition for her to go to school, a fact that left her with a little bit of guilt.

"She had opportunities to go out of state and have a full ride, albeit at a lower level school," her mother, Ann, said. "She felt bad that we were going to have to pay tuition after having paid for her club and all that kind of stuff through her younger years in high school and middle school."

While Davis is now second on the team in service aces and fifth in digs with 130, the transition from high school to the college game wasn't a simple one.

"It was really funny because my first day at practice, I was wide-eyed and moving all over the place and trying to do way too much," Davis said. "The speed is different, the game is different, there's much more reason for what you're doing instead of just going through the motions in practice."

Davis, who was named to the Southeastern Conference Academic Honor Roll her sophomore year, has obviously come along way from those days, and she credits her consistent hard work as the reason she's gotten to where she is today.

"It's definitely a plus [knowing] people say, 'Well maybe if you work hard and that's all you do, you don't ever get anything from it,'" Davis said. "Well that's a lie, because I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now if I didn't work hard and stay here all summer and work in the gym. It's definitely in direct relation to working hard."

And the fact that she has found her niche in Gainesville is what has pleased her family the most.

"She's happy, that's the main thing," her mother said. "We're happy that's she's happy, we're just proud."