New Boys Volleyball Club at Central

Champaign Central Junior Jake Crawmer along with some friends founded a Boys Volleyball Club with the help of their sponsor Teacher’s Aide and Freshman Girls’ Volleyball Coach Ms. Mary Corkery. Practices will commence on February 15th in the North Gym after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays and run through the rest of the school year. 

Crawmer said, “I decided to start boys’ volleyball because volleyball is a sport I’ve always been interested in since my sister [McKenna Crawmer, alumni of Champaign Central] introduced it to me. I felt like being able to play volleyball on a team with other students was an important experience that the school was missing out on.”

Ms. Cork has experience coaching middle school volleyball for four years with last fall being her first year coaching Central Freshman Volleyball. As for how she got involved with the boys’ side of it, she said, “I heard about the opportunity in December and started working with the Athletic Office to get the ball rolling on starting the club.”

Crawmer, along with other junior boys, had been looking to start the club early last semester: ‘It felt like a long, long time waiting for the club to be approved. The main issue was finding a sponsor… It took around maybe four months for us to hear from Ms. Cork, but I really think the time waiting was worth it,” he said, “The waiting was bound to happen no matter what: gym space has been limited and boys’ volleyball is a spring sport, anyway.” 

As for if tryouts will be held to accept students into the club, there will not be any. Ms. Cork said, “Any skill level is welcome to join! I want everyone to have an opportunity to learn and grow in the sport. The only requirement to join the club is to have a waiver signed and turned into the Athletic Office before starting practice.”

In addition to the leadership of Ms. Cork, the club will have two captains for the team: “These captains will be responsible for helping to lead practices and prepare for tournaments/matches,” Crawmer said, “I’ll be one of the two captains, and the other will be elected by the team!”

Both Ms. Cork and Crawmer look forward to connecting with other schools in the area to host tournaments. Crawmer said, “In fact, we’re working a lot on that right now, especially with Centennial. We’re also planning to incorporate tournaments outside of Champaign into our schedule.”

Many students around Central have expressed interest in joining the club. Junior Wesley Collins said, “I definitely was interested in joining the Boys’ Volleyball Club. Just with Track and everything I think that would be hard to do.”

Sophomore Chloe Flynn from Central Volleyball is happy to see boys’ volleyball start up at our school: “I feel like they needed one because if you have the girls and you have enough people who want to do it, why not have a guys’ team?” She is also familiar with Ms. Cork’s coaching, saying “I definitely feel like she improved the freshman team.”

Finally, Ms. Cork said, “I am so excited for this opportunity and cannot wait to see what we accomplish this semester!”