What Makes Pitt Volleyball Elite: Culture, Buy-In & Small Conflicts with Kamalani Akeo

Inside Maya Winterhoff's Professional Volleyball Draft Day

In this episode of She Aced That, Alyxandra sits down with Maya Winterhoff — middle blocker for the Columbus Fury of Major League Volleyball and App State's first-ever professional volleyball draftee. Selected No. 20 overall in the 2025 MLV Draft, Maya was the only player from the Sun Belt Conference drafted that year, capping off one of the most decorated careers in App State history: four-time All-Sun Belt, AVCA East Coast First-Team All-Region, over 1,000 career kills, and three consecutive seasons leading the Sun Belt in hitting percentage. In this conversation, Maya opens up about: 🏐 Falling in love with volleyball as a sixth grader🏐 Why she chose App State over Dayton and Delaware (and the Instagram bio trick that helped her decide)🏐 The wild regional championship story that involved a ref call, a curtain, and social distancing🏐 What draft day actually looked like — including the pimple patches, the packing, and seeing her name on the screen🏐 The reality of transitioning from college to professional volleyball and playing alongside Olympic-level talent🏐 Why middle blocker is the most underappreciated position on the court🏐 Her dream of becoming a college coach and the path she's building to get there Maya's story is a masterclass in trusting your gut, committing to your decisions, and letting your game speak — no matter where you start. Follow Maya and the Columbus Fury this MLV season.

What It Actually Takes to Run a Volleyball Club with Al Patterson & Rob Conley

What does it actually take to run a volleyball club? Not the polished version — the real, behind-the-scenes, phone-calls-every-morning, budgeting-over-a-year-in-advance version. In this episode, I sit down with Alan Patterson and Rob Conley, the Club Director and Assistant Club Director of Dynamite Volleyball Club out of South Lyon, Michigan. Al founded Dynamite — not because he set out to build a club, but because he wanted to give his daughter a better volleyball experience. What started as one local team has grown into a competitive club with nearly 170 athletes across national, premier, and local level teams. We get into all of it — what it costs to run a club, how they find and keep great coaches, what goes into hosting tournaments, how they handle drama and conflict on teams, their approach to recruiting, their reasonings on maintaining a smaller club size, and what kept them afloat during COVID when so many clubs didn't make it. Whether you're a volleyball parent trying to understand what actually goes on behind the scenes, a coach looking to grow, or someone who's ever thought about starting a club of your own — this conversation is for you!

The Power of Growth Mindset with Alejandro De Mendoza

This week I'm sitting down with Alejandro De Mendoza, also known as @thevolleyballcoach! Alejandro is the club director at Momentous Volleyball Club in California, a coach with over a decade in the sport, and someone who spent years working alongside the USA Women's National Team. We get into growth mindset and why that one little word "yet" is more powerful than you think, the difference between internal and external confidence and how people pleasing shows up in athletes more than we talk about, what it actually takes to build elite team culture, how his experiences changed the way he coaches, and what he wishes was different about youth volleyball development in the United States.

How Emily Ehman Changed Volleyball Broadcasting

The future of volleyball is now — and Emily Ehman has been at the forefront of it! Emily grew up in Bloomington, Indiana as a multi-sport athlete playing both volleyball and track at a high level. She played club at Circle City in Indianapolis, driving over an hour each way. At 5'8" she could touch 10 feet — a direct result of her cross-training as a jumper and sprinter. She committed to Northwestern in the spring of her junior year, where she walked on as a libero after playing six-rotation outside her entire life and balanced playing in the Big Ten with one of the most rigorous journalism programs in the country. When COVID shut the world down right as she graduated, Emily took matters into her own hands. She built a volleyball web show from her parents' basement, pitched herself to volleyball publications and networks, and essentially created the digital host role in volleyball media. She covered the NCAA tournament for Big Ten Network, worked with Athletes Unlimited, and has since become a fixture on ESPN, ABC, Big Ten Network, Fox, and CBS. She was in the booth for volleyball day in Nebraska — the world record 92,003 attendance event — and has been at the forefront of pushing for better coverage, better visibility, and better treatment of the sport at every level. In this episode, Emily and I talk about being a multi-sport athlete, choosing a two's team over a one's team to keep doing track, walking on at Northwestern and the mindset shift of going from being the best on your team in high school to playing with other elite athletes in college, role acceptance and finding your value when you're not getting playing time, navigating student athlete life, graduating into a pandemic with no reel and no job, building a career from scratch by identifying gaps and pitching herself, what it was like to call volleyball day in Nebraska, the future of professional volleyball in the US, and her advice for anyone looking to keep the sport in their life beyond playing. Whether you're an athlete figuring out what's next, a parent supporting your kid through sports, or someone who just loves volleyball and wants to understand where this sport is headed — this episode is for you! Follow Emily Ehman: @EmilyEhman

What Makes Pitt Volleyball Elite: Culture, Buy-In & Small Conflicts with Kamalani Akeo

Pitt Volleyball assistant coach Kamalani Akeo joins She Aced That to talk about what makes one of the most successful programs in college volleyball so consistently elite. From culture and buy-in to direct communication and what Pitt calls "small conflicts," Kamalani breaks down the foundation that has led to multiple Final Four appearances and national championship runs. Kamalani's own story is just as compelling — growing up in a volleyball family in Hawaii, playing club under Olympic medalist Robin Ah Mow-Santos, tearing her ACL senior year of high school, committing to Pitt as a libero and becoming ACC Setter of the Year as a sophomore, playing professionally in the Czech Republic and Slovenia during COVID, and coaching at Pitt alongside her younger sister. We also get into the recruiting process from a coach's perspective, advice for setters on leading beyond technique, how to navigate injuries without losing your identity, and what parents really need to hear about supporting their kids in sports. Follow Kamalani @kamalaniakeo