When Vikings volleyball coach
Michael Seemann was recruiting Scottsdale, Arizona's
Whitney Phillips during her senior year at Desert Mountain High School, he knew what he was doing.
Unfortunately, Phillips picked New Mexico State, where she played two years.
Fortunately, when she decided it was time to see other parts of the U.S., she remembered Seemann. It’s fortunate for PSU because the outside hitter has had a huge impact in her first season on a team which already was deep in quality players.
As the quest for this year’s Big Sky Conference championship is just getting underway, Phillips leads the league in kills per set and points per set. She has led PSU in kills in 15 of 17 matches and has accumulated 20 or more kills in five matches (last season, a Viking went over the 20-kill mark just once).
Oh, by the way, she also was fifth among Division I players with a 4.72 kills per set average and ranked 17th nationally at 6.06 points per set early in October.
“Out of high school, I felt a Southwest school would fit me a little better. It was closer to home. The weather was more the same; the people were more the same. Las Cruces was a little smaller community with a more comfortable feel for me,” she said. At that time, moving to Portland would have put her a little out of her comfort zone, she recalled.
After two years, though, “I decided I needed to get out of the Southwest to explore other parts of the country while I still had my support group—the volleyball team and coaches. I was glad I went to New Mexico State, but I sort of grew up in Las Cruces and reached a point where I needed to leave the area.”
That’s not to say that Portland was exactly a foreign country. Phillips was born in Portland, moving to Arizona when she was four, “so I really don’t remember anything about living here.”
She does remember the summers she spent on vacation with her family to visit relatives in West Linn, relatives who are still here and who have helped her make the transition to Portland’s (shall we say) somewhat damper climate.
She described the move as “a big challenge” and she’s currently living in Gresham (“where I live in a great neighborhood with lots of great neighbors nearby”) and considering a move downtown to the PSU campus next year.
As to the volleyball aspect of here life, she couldn’t be happier … and neither could Seemann.
“We recruited her out of high school. We saw that she had a very powerful swing and, had she come here as a freshman, I think she would have had an impact on our team,” he said.
Besides her swing, Seemann said Phillips is a good passer.
“She has great vision, she pictures how things are going to unfold, and she’s improving her shot selection, making better judgments about when to hit a high percentage shot and when to take lower percentage shots. That just comes with experience,” he said.
Phillips’ success at the Division I level comes as no surprise to her high school and club (Arizona Sky) coach Amanda Burbridge.
“I’m not surprised at her success in college. I played at the D-1 level (Arizona State), so I know what it takes to play on that level. I knew she had the talent to play there from the first time I saw her play,” said Burbridge.
From an athletic family, it was no surprise when she took up volleyball in the 7th grade (mother Sherre played volleyball at Arizona State and dad Stephen was a record setting track star in high school). Her twin sister Kelsi plays volleyball at New Mexico State and younger brother Jason plays high school football and soccer.
“I liked volleyball because it was such a fast paced game,” she said. Still, she also excelled at softball (playing shortstop and second base) in high school to the point where she attracted Division I interest. In high school, though, she’d made up her mind to play college volleyball, ultimately, a fortuitous choice for the Vikings.
Burbridge thinks that softball probably contributed to her arm strength, but that her strongest suit is “how competitive she is. She isn’t going to lose without putting up a fight. If the game is on the line, you give her the ball and she can do something with it.”
Phillips doesn’t hesitate when asked what her favorite part of playing is. “I always really enjoy attacking. It’s the excitement of trying to figure out what works … a cat and mouse game … you try something and if it doesn’t work, you come back with something else,” she said.
While she likes to attack, she views her role through a team prism. “It’s not me against the other team. This is a team sport and my teammates are always helping me know where to hit it.”
She’s also an inspirational player, agree Seemann and Burbridge.
“Whitney loves to attack and that inspires others to attack … and it inspires our defense. It makes the people around her better,” said Seemann.
Burbridge described her as “a leader who leads with her physical presence.”
A good student, Phillips is majoring in finance and is on track to graduate in 2011. Since she hasn’t decided on a career, she thinks there might be an MBA in her future, which, she said, probably will not include playing volleyball (“I wouldn’t know where to play”).
As to coaching … well, “I did coach a team of 12-year-olds a couple of years ago. It was a challenge going back to remember what it was like at their age. It was a challenge to work with such small kids, but it was fun.”
For now, said Seemann, Whitney loves the game. She loves the fun things of the game.” She also likes to hike, especially where she can take her dog Koda (from the Disney Movie Brother Bear, she admitted a little sheepishly).
Although she’s not fully acclimated here yet, she likes Portland. She likes walking around and exploring the city. And, she likes the myriad of activities available in Portland (“especially compared to Las Cruces”).
Perhaps the most important thing about her move, though, is that she’s having fun. “Yes, I’m having fun. I’m having a blast,” she said.
Photo Credit: Naomi Stukey
