Listen to this episode of the 35,000 Feet podcast to hear from the head coach of women’s volleyball at Bradley University, Carol Price Torok. She talks about how growing up with a life of sports positively impacted and changed her life, how the team plans to take the next step in their coming season, and also her advice on how to own your own process!

In this episode, we discuss:

• What Carol learned from her most recent season coaching volleyball (0:37)

• How Carol decided to become a coach (4:20)

• How traveling internationally as a team has affected the connection between athletes on the court and as friends (7:45)

• Carol’s next goal for her team and season (11:18)

• Carol’s advice to collegiate athletes (13:30)

How Carol Became a Coach

Coach Carol: It’s a family thing for me. I was very fortunate, my older sister played volleyball, my mom was our volleyball coach, so it was very familiar, very fun because I'm the middle of two sisters, I'm sorry, three sisters total. And we all played volleyball because my mom was coaching it. We played everything. My dad was a basketball player, sports was just a part of our life and I was very lucky to have not only my mom but some really, really great high school coaches in volleyball and in basketball. And they just really shaped how I want it to be as an athlete and who I wanted to become and how they pushed me in the conversations that they had with me really just helped me love sports, and I think in every aspect sports can help us so many different things.

It helped with my confidence. It helped with my anger if you will. As a little kid, I had a really bad temper and it was like, "Okay, the sports can be my outlet." This is where I can learn some of these lessons that I may not learn otherwise. And so I was just, again, really, really lucky. Brad Dewitt was my basketball coach, Natalie Cook was my high school volleyball coach, and they just became a part of our family. What we did and how we were raised in the gym and in their cultures was amazing. And then I got to college and I'm one of those athletes that went to school for athletics, and school was just the vehicle that got me to those athletics. So I was learning how to have great pride in a classroom as well as on the court.

Again, that's something that my coach has brought to me and my coaches were able to instill in me, and I'm just really appreciative and really, really grateful that I had that opportunity. And that was kind of like, "Oh crap, what am I going to do when I'm done with school?" One of my grad assistants was coaching at a school and she said, "Why don't you come give this a try?" My mom was a teacher, and my dad was a counselor, so that's teaching, and the people around me, that mentality just was instilled in me. So it seemed like a very natural fit to continue to do something that I really, really enjoyed and be able to teach the game and give back.

Coach Carol’s Travel Experiences + Bradley Women’s Volleyball Puerto Rico International Tour

Gracee: Kind of just diving into more, because we are a travel company, so we really like to dive in and get more information on how either foreign tours or just traveling as a team for games has affected your guys on the court, and also just like the connection between your girls.

Coach Carol: Well, I think volleyball has taken me to so many different places personally. As a player, we got to go as a team and played at the University of Hawaii and it was just a really cool trip. When I was at Arkansas, we got to take our team overseas, we had a player from Croatia. So we got to go play in front of her hometown and see all the nuances of her town and her family and how she was raised. And that trip just ... It makes you so much closer because you're in environments that you're not used to, you're learning about new cultures and different ways of living and it just really makes you have some really cool talking points, and you just ... Obviously, as state kids and people in the States, you're just so fortunate for the things that you have and the training tools and training devices.

So I think those trips are really invaluable because, one, you're together and you're doing all these things and seeing all these cool different things and you just have all these talking points and different ways to explain things and get these perspectives on things. So it's really, really fun. Then here at Bradley, we took our first ever foreign tour as a volleyball program two years ago. We were supposed to go to Nicaragua, unfortunately, had to change at the last minute due to some of the things that they're having going on in that country, government and things like that. And it actually turned out to be a pretty phenomenal change because we got to go to Puerto Rico and we got to play another team from Puerto Rico and it was post-hurricane. So we were able to gather all of these supplies from people here in Peoria and pack these bags and take them down there and deliver them to people that needed it.

I think we had four players at the time that were ... One was from Puerto Rico, two players that were fluent in Spanish, and then two players that were taking Spanish classes. And so them being able to go down there and practice and utilize those things, but just seeing them having those conversations with people one on one and being able to connect up with them. I mean, you literally couldn't ask for a more special moment, and knowing that it was in the hometown of one of our players who had really been affected and the reception that we got for her being there and coming back, I mean it was ... I mean, it blew me away now from just a human being standpoint was so cool. I got to go to her middle school and they gave her this huge award and the whole entire middle school was chanting her name.

What’s Next for Bradley Volleyball

Gracee: What are you most excited about for this year? Or like what are your girls looking forward to, and what's your next goal?

Coach Carol: I think for us it's a little unfinished business. We've gone back to back conference tournament appearances for us, which is really, really cool. But we've lost in five sets in the first round both times. So, we're getting to the point where we were like, "Okay, we're going to have to take this next step." And what does that look like? And so we're doing a lot of mental training and leadership things this spring. We only graduated two players. We have the bulk of our team coming back. That is really ready to prove themselves and who we are as a program.

I think that just obviously kicks off from a recruiting standpoint and a prospective of outside people looking at our programs. Hey, this is Bradley, this is the staple, this is their standard if you will. And I think from that, we want to set ourselves up to win the conference, have a conference championship under our belt and really be a force to reckon with in our conference. And I think that's a little bit of an unspoken goal for us. Put yourself in a position to win a conference championship every year. And I think we have the athletes and the staff in place to do that.

Owning Your Process

Gracee: If I was an athlete wanting to pay for a team in a university, what would your advice be?

Coach Carol: I think really be realistic about your goals. What am I looking to do? And I talked a little bit about myself. I was volleyball or bust, that was a little bit of my mentality. I could see volleyball was one of the most important things to me. And now obviously when I got to school, that changed a little bit. But some players, they are dead set on, I know that I want to go into the medical field. So I think for them it's, what does that look like? How do I get there? You know, who has the tools to help me get there? What size school do I want? Do I want to be in a radius from my family? Do I want to go experience something new? And I grew up in Michigan and went and played at Texas A and M. So I was totally but able to just get a really new experience with different people. And it's just kind of a different way of living. Michigan, Texas, I mean they're totally opposite.

So I think you just have to really put pen to paper. I'm a big believer in that. And just really owning your process. I think people can get caught up on this is what I should do, or this is what everyone around me does. There's some division two, division three schools that are kicking butt. I mean, really, really good, high-level volleyball. And so I think it's not really getting caught up in this showtime, this big time, I have to do this because everyone's saying this, but really owning your process of what you want to do. And I think that's just looking inside yourself to see what your goals are and what you're willing to do.

Follow Bradley Braves Sports

• Carol Price Torok Twitter

• Bradley Braves Website

• Bradley Braves Facebook

Podcast made in partnership with Acanela Expeditions

Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle