By Derryl Trujillo
— At its elite levels, sports can offer some amazing travel opportunities.
Chaparral graduate (‘18) Julia Haynie, an incoming senior at San Diego State, knew this after an Italian adventure with her Forza1 South club volleyball team as a high school senior. After last week’s trip to Croatia, in which the Temecula native participated in the 17th Annual Global Challenge Volleyball Tournament and won a Brijuni Division championship (U23), she can officially call herself a grizzled veteran of international travel and competition.
Her team (Team BIP), composed of players from NCAA member institutions in divisions one or two, was led by former USC women’s volleyball coach Mick Haley. Haynie remarked about the experience of playing for one of the game’s biggest legends “I was definitely in awe that I had one of the game’s living legends serving as my coach for that first day of practice, but you have to put that out of your mind and go to work.”
When asked during a phone conversation what she learned from Haley she remarked “I loved his approach to the game and his two rules…Firstly to learn and second to have fun. The latter can definitely fall by the wayside sometimes, but it is important to find joy in playing the game otherwise anything else is irrelevant. I’ll take that with me to San Diego State along with the importance of off court chemistry as we prepare for the coming year.”
It almost didn’t happen for Haynie as she grabbed one of the team’s final spots after Aztecs coach Brent Hilliard informed her of the opportunity in April.
Her Forza experience definitely came in handy with Haynie adding, “Only two of us had ever been abroad so we had the advantages of knowing travel & volleyball. Internationals play a more cerebral style of volleyball compared to the power game we are used to stateside and that takes a bit of getting used to. They also played with a different ball which required Coach Haley to teach a different service receive pattern. You are basically getting a crash course in international volleyball and if you have aspirations of playing there it is so helpful.”
Haynie’s final season at San Diego State begins with an August 20th scrimmage just up the 5 freeway at UC Irvine and their regular season opener will be on August 26th against Cal in the San Diego State Tournament with a 1 p.m. first serve from Peterson Gym.
15 With Haynie:
- Sports movie or chick flick? Chick Flick (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days)
- Guilty shopping pleasure? Books
- Hulu/Netflix streaming list? Moonlight/The Summer I Turned Pretty
- Favorite Mom & Pop restaurant near San Diego State? Trujillo’s
- Coffee Bean, Tea & Leaf or Starbucks? Starbucks
- Best class: Science
- Worst class: History
- Favorite food city in the Mountain West? Vegas
- Most historic venue ever played in? McHale Center (Home of Dana Burkholder)
- Queen of volleyball rule change? Six rotation middles
- Dream vacation? Australia
- Dream car? Ford Bronco
- Powerball jackpot? Invest or get my family something nice. Harry Styles concert.
- Celebrity crush? Harry Styles or Andrew Garfield
- Dream NCAA Tournament Broadcast crew? Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart
Derryl Trujillo has been a sportswriter in the area since 2018 and is a 2019 winner of the IEBCA Supporter of the Year award. He can be reached by email at socaltrekkie@gmail.com.
