For my Community Connections assignment, I decided to interview Autumn Bailey. Autumn is a Canadian Professional Volleyball player. I chose to interview Autumn because I play Volleyball too and have always dreamed of playing on the national team and getting as far as she is! We also play the same position too. Autumn Has played on the national team since 2017! She goes to school and plays at Michigan State University. She is such an amazing player, and every time that I watch clips of her playing, I always think about how amazing it would be to play like that and how much effort and time she put in, to train and get to her skill levels today. I contacted her using direct messages on Instagram.
1. Why are you passionate about your role or job?
She answered with “Volleyball is my passion because its such a fast paced exciting game. The feeling I get when I play isn’t comparable to anything else. I’ve played since I was 10 years old and I fell in love with it. I love that it’s a team sport and I get to share wins and losses with my bestfriends.”
2. What obstacles have you faced to get you where you are today?
Her response was “I’ve faced many obstacles throughout my career. A lot of obstacles I’ve faced have been sacrifices. Not getting to see my family, friends, live away from home, miss weddings and birthdays because we have training/games. Its really difficult sometimes but its worth it. I’ve also faced obstacles in the form of injury. In 2015 I had a devastating season-ending injury that took 10 months to recover from and then in 2019 I had another knee injury that has kept me out of volleyball for a long time. I’ve had to work extra hard to come back from these injuries.”
3. What advice would you pass on to someone interested in what you are doing?
She said “Advice I’d give to someone who want t play at this level would be to play as much as you can when you’re young. Play lots of tournaments, go to all the extra practices, play beach volleyball if you can. Playing beach volleyball in the summers helped me so much and taught me a lot about the game.”
4. Would you be open to further contact from Riverside students and if so, how can someone contact you?
She replied with “I’d love to hear from other students! they can contact me wherever. On Instagram is a great way, I also have no problem texting or talking on the phone!”
5. What age did you start playing volleyball at?
She said “I started playing volleyball when I was 10 years old!”
6. Did you know right away that volleyball was your passion?
she answered with “I knew right away that I loved volleyball. I loved getting better and seeing things people were doing and trying to do it even better. It was so much fun always. Once I saw that I could play in university and for the national team I was really driven to work hard to make those dreams come true.”
From this interview I learned that the most important thing to get your dreams, is to work hard, and train as much as you can when you’re young, I really want to start working a lot harder and training at home more, so that I can get my dreams of being a professional volleyball player to come true. Thank you Autumn for answering me so quickly and for being such an amazing role model and inspiration for me!
here is her on Volleyball Canada’s website: https://volleyball.ca/en/athletes/autumn-bailey
Here are the links for the photos that I used:
https://www.volleyball.it/bergamo-dal-canada-arriva-bailey-per-lattacco-della-zanetti/
https://volleyball.ca/en/news/canada-s-women-s-team-to-play-for-vnl-berth