Omnibus

By Lindsey Banks

When Hunter Edkins gives tours of UNC-Chapel Hill, he shares some of his favorite traditions, but there are some stories he has to leave out. He doesn’t mention the hundreds of naked students running through Davis Library around the first day of finals, the burning couches in the middle of Franklin Street after a UNC basketball victory over Duke University, or students arguing with Gary, the anti-abortion “Pit Preacher” who sits in the middle of campus with a big, red “stop sinning” sign.

But that makes sense. There are some experiences students need to discover on their own once they get to campus. However, when Hunter first joined the Admissions Ambassadors program as a tour guide last year, there were more important things he left out of his tours. During his training to be a guide, he wasn’t taught the University’s history or the resources available to minority students.

New stops for campus tours

This semester, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions made some major changes to the Admissions Ambassadors program. The most significant change: a new tour route, including two new stops to incorporate the missing information.

The first new stop is at a brick walkway called “The Gift,” an art installation outside the Student Union on campus. The walkway was designed by American Indian artist Senora Lynch and incorporates elements of American Indian storytelling. At this stop, ambassadors share that the university was built by enslaved people on stolen American Indian land in the late 1700s. They also highlight the American Indian and Indigenous Studies program on campus.

“It’s something that in the first couple of tours was an adjustment period of becoming comfortable discussing it,” Hunter said.  

The second new stop is at the Stone Center. This building is named after Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone, a prominent Black faculty member on campus in the 1970s and 80s. She was named Woman of the Year by the NAACP and was the primary advocate for the African and African American Diaspora curriculum at UNC.

This information is important to acknowledge on the tour, but Hunter feels these stops do not flow well with the stops before and after, which discuss student life, academics and Carolina traditions.

“It feels a little disjointed because the tone goes from super passionate, super excited to something a little more solemn to then back to that right after,” Hunter said.

Helping minority students find a community

Lydia Mansfield, a new ambassador, has a personal connection with the sentiments behind “The Gift.” She’s a member of the Lumbee Tribe in Pembroke, North Carolina and the historian for the Carolina Indian Circle at UNC. A few weeks ago, professors of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies program told students they would be leaving at the end of the year because they do not feel supported by the university. Because of this, the AIIS program is likely to end.

“The Gift” tour stop is dedicated to sharing information about this program, so Lydia hopes the focus of this stop will shift to the resources and organizations that offer minority students a community on campus. It’s something she wishes she had heard more of when she toured as a senior in high school.

When Lydia first arrived on campus back in August, she didn’t feel welcome. It wasn’t until Isaac Bell, a member of the Admissions Office and a fellow Lumbee Tribe member, told her about the Carolina Indian Circle that she found her community. She worries that the lack of outreach to American Indian students will turn prospective students away from UNC.

In her tours, instead of focusing on the negative experiences, Lydia focuses on how the American Indian students on campus today are working toward creating more spots for American Indian students in the future.

The challenges of being an ambassador

Hunter has a similar approach to tours. He separates his feelings toward administration from his personal experience as a student on campus. Instead of commenting on the mismanagement of the mental health crisis this semester, he shares his favorite memories with prospective students and gives advice on navigating the sea of over 19,000 undergraduates.

In training, ambassadors are taught to lean into their storytelling abilities while weaving in important facts about UNC. For example, when mentioning UNC has over 800 student organizations, ambassadors share the clubs they are involved in.

It’s no secret that students and professors do not always agree with the decisions of the university. Within the last year, ex-ambassador Gabriela Duncan disagreed with how the administration handled the COVID-19 outbreaks on campus, the revocation of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ tenure and the mental health crisis after multiple suicides on campus.

“Representing the university kind of conflicts with my values in a way,” Gabriela said. “A lot of the work that I do outside of school regards how UNC is funding the climate crisis, and I probably wouldn’t even be able to talk about this [on tours] because then if I’m talking about how UNC is funding the climate crisis, why would people want to go here?”

During training, Gabriela was asked a practice question: What is your least favorite thing about UNC? Her response: It isn’t as sustainable as it should be. “UNC greenwashes,” she said. An executive ambassador advised against sharing that and offered up her answer as an alternative Gabriela could use: “There’s just too much to do on campus.”

“I was like, ‘No.’ That’s not right to me,” Gabriela said. “Don’t have your negative be a positive thing.”

Gabriela also said that she didn’t feel valued as an ambassador. However, the Admissions Office has made another significant change to combat that feeling, which Hunter was also experiencing. 

Ambassadors are now employees of the university and receive an hourly wage. Before this year, tours were given on a volunteer basis. But because ambassadors are now paid, the Admissions Office had to cut numbers from about 120 to about 65. All previous ambassadors had to reapply to the program. Gabriela felt uninspired to reapply, so she decided not to.

As for Hunter, he was excited to get back out there and have a hand in helping students discover a home at UNC. Lydia shares this excitement, especially about leading a tour for a group of American Indian students on Nov. 20. She hopes to be a resource for them that she didn’t have coming into Carolina.  

Edited by Sara Raja

 

By Claire Perry

Devil’s Tramping Ground Road may scare some, but Tamara Dowd Owens was not afraid as her Honda traversed its dirt that sunny afternoon.

The road is named for her destination: the Devil’s Tramping Ground, a circle of land outside of Pittsboro where nothing will grow, rumored to be the home of Satan himself. 

But Tamara has been driving that road since before the swaths of tourists and reporters, back when it was named Dowd Road for the century of ancestors that have lived in its stead. When she reached the tramping grounds that day, she tied up her hair with a blonde hair tie and told her middle son, Jackson, to get out of the car. It was time to pick up trash. 

The beer cans and chip bags that litter the tramping grounds are covered in a thin dust, salty — so salty that scientists think it is the cause of the circle’s antipathy to the parasitic kudzu that surrounds it.

Today, there are no goat sacrifices sitting in the circle’s center. The trees surrounding the barren glen are not covered in spray-painted pentagrams; no Ouija Boards litter the ground. Today, there is only a hornet.

She warns Jackson.

“Honey, be careful.”

Tamara takes his hand, and meanders away from the circle out to the paths in the surrounding forest. She remembers walking these paths as a girl, getting lost in their spiraling curls until the time was as matted as the briars.

Even now, she refuses to go to the Tramping Grounds at night. She never forgot the warnings of her father, the custodian of the grounds until his death in 2015. He had heard stories of coyote visits, whispers of an ancient native burial ground amplified by the arrowheads he found.

Today, though, there are no coyotes to be found. There is only a hornet, seemingly trailing the pair, stuck on them like one of the path’s stray briars.

She was at the circle a week before, shadowing a group of paranormal investigators. Tamara always watched the people the site attracted from a distance, but that time, she stuck around. She watched the investigators communicate with whatever lived in the circle—or more likely, died — from a paranormal communicator.

“Is anything there?” 

“Yes.”  

She drove home pretty soon after.

Tamara believes in things unknown, but can’t decide if they are bad or good, lost or found. She doesn’t know what spirits haunt that circle. She does, however, know what haunts the circle today, resting on her car’s rear view mirror until she turns onto Devil’s Tramping Ground Road — a single hornet.

Just a dream 

Barry Landrum struggled to maneuver his hands, pushing in vain against a feather-stuffed Sisyphean boulder that was slowly smothering him. 

Landrum woke up to his pillow in his lap.

He was staying in The Inn at Merridun, an antebellum-era bed-and-breakfast in Union, South Carolina, while covering the infamous 1994 Susan Smith infanticide trial for a local news station. Landrum put the pillow back under his head and tried to drift back to sleep, the thunder that rumbled outside the floor-to-ceiling windows an unsettling lullaby. 

“That was a really vivid dream,” he said to himself. “I’ve never had a dream like that before.” 

It was just that, he thought: a dream. Barry Landrum didn’t believe in ghosts. 

A pair of ice cold hands grabbed his knees, and pulled him almost to the end of the bed. 

Landrum didn’t look around. He didn’t want to look around.

For half an hour, he stared at the ceiling, caressing the masonry with his pupils to distract from his fear of spotting an unknown silhouette. Silent and still, as the lightning cascaded on the bed’s patchwork quilt, he drifted back to sleep.

What Barry Landrum didn’t know before that night was that the mansion housed a mysterious figure who lurked at the tops of stairwells and in the corners of eyes, gone by the time one could get a good look at it. As he scoured the guest book in his bedroom for its mention the next morning, he found nothing, but a clerk confirmed that he wasn’t the first person in. 

Barry Landrum drove back to Charleston the next morning. He wouldn’t tell his wife what had happened for four years, when his daughter Megan was born. Barry Landrum didn’t believe in ghosts — until he did. 

 “Go toward the light”

It was March 17, 2016, St. Patrick’s Day, when 55-year-old David Baxter Long drove his Jeep Cherokee outside of Winston-Salem to Union Cross Road. 

His sneakers hit the pavement. They walked into I-40. By the time the driver realized he had just hit a man, it was too late. David Long had committed suicide.

Julie Faenza was stuck in traffic on a work drive from Raleigh to Boone, her Silver Ford Escape reflecting the thick white sky.  She was talking with her coworker when she saw the firefighters leaning down to check a pulse, and Jones’ feet poking out from under a semi truck. That’s when her stomach started to sink.

Faenzi identifies as an empath, which means she was familiar with feeling others’ feelings, even their pain. This feeling was different.

“It was what I imagined somebody going to commit suicide would feel, that they were in so much pain that suicide would be the only way to end the pain,” Faenza said. “Depression, soul-crushing agony — it was one of the worst things I’ve ever felt.”

Faenza is no stranger to death. Her mother was a trauma nurse, and a childhood friend of the Warren Family, the paranormal pillars of “Annabelle” fame. So as she cried, her eyes stormy like the clouds above as her partner pulled into a gas station outside of Kernersville, she dialed her mom’s phone number.

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone’s dead,” Faenza sobbed. “I feel him, and it’s agonizing and it’s awful and I don’t know what to do.”

Through her tears, she explained the traffic, the feet, the pit that was sinking to the bottom of her gut like a leaden Titanic. Maybe by instinct, maybe by luck, her mother knew what to do. 

 “Julie, you need to tell him to go toward the light.”

“Mom, I can’t.” 

 As her mother kept talking, Faenza thought back to her first interaction with death, shadowing her mother in an operating room when a person coded blue. She remembers crying while taking off the woman’s rings, and her mother’s ever-important words.

“This is a person. They’re not breathing anymore, their heart isn’t beating, but it is a person. That’s what you need to understand. It’s nothing to be scared of, it is a person.”

 Reflecting on her mother’s words, Faenza was not afraid. What happens next, she doesn’t remember well — her memories are fogged with tears. She remembers a one-ended conversation. 

“I’m sorry you’re hurting. Your family will find your body, and they’re not mad at you. It’s okay to go toward the light.”

 The feeling wouldn’t budge.

“Go toward the light.” 

And just like that, the feeling left, plopping out of her like Jell-O, and melting into the gas station parking lot’s iridescent shimmer. Just like that, David Baxter Long went toward the light.

Edited by Claire Tynan

By Nicole Moorefield

Catherine Powell first picked up a camera when she was 4 years old at Disney World — or, at least, that’s how her mother tells it.

“That feels dramatic,” Powell says.

In Powell’s version, the story takes place in fifth grade at photography club. Regardless, she began shooting concerts at 14. Her first photo pass was for All Time Low and The Maine at Starland Ballroom in New Jersey.

More than a decade of determination later, the 27-year-old has a successful career as a tour photographer for artists like Dan + Shay and Kacey Musgraves. She shot All Time Low and The Maine on a bill together again in August — very full-circle.

She gets to live the life she once dreamed of — traveling the world, rubbing elbows with celebrities. But it’s not as glamorous as she might have imagined growing up.

An only child, Powell grew up in a sports-loving town in New Jersey that celebrated lacrosse as a holiday. However, athletics weren’t her strong suit — her father flat-out told her she wouldn’t make the softball team — so she found photography.

Amanda Schechter, Powell’s friend since they were 4 years old, likens a young Powell to Kimmy Gibbler, the overly enthusiastic neighbor from “Full House” who became an honorary member of the Tanner clan — “but in a good way,” Schechter says.

“She was always just barging into my house,” Schechter says.

She describes Powell as outgoing, determined and “kind of a tomboy” as a kid.

“She’s really confident, but she wasn’t always,” Schechter says . She grew through life experiences.

Flight after flight, shoot after shoot

Powell was only ever interested in shooting the entertainment world. Avid fans of the Warped Tour, Powell and her friend Ariella Mastroianni were frustrated that magazines weren’t covering their favorite artists, so they decided to start their own. In 2011, NKD Magazine was born.

NKD ran for 100 issues, with cover stars ranging from Kelsea Ballerini to The Madden Brothers. It grew from covering musicians to also featuring actors. 

Powell says deciding to end the magazine was the most difficult decision she has ever made.

“I started thinking about it two years before I actually did it,” she says. “There was no actual profit and I was putting literally every hour I was awake into it.”

By then, she was juggling too much. Powell was the only photographer for every issue. She oversaw a small team of writers herself — Mastroianni left in 2013.

It was a small miracle she graduated college — four years at the School of Visual Arts that she hated, except for the opportunity to move to New York City.

Her professors didn’t consider her work true art. Balancing shoots for the magazine with classes was difficult. For most of her final semester, she was on tour.

Her school had a strict absence policy — three missed classes per course — and Powell managed to meet that. But one professor had a limit of two absences.

“I had to petition my dean to let me graduate,” she says. “Yes, I missed three of his classes, but I also had the highest grade in the class with a 97.”

She fit photoshoots around tour schedules, touring with MAX and MKTO. Some weeks included three 5 a.m. flights. The lifestyle was exhausting, but she pushed on, undaunted.

Her ‘Golden Hour’ 

Enter Kacey Musgraves. Powell was shooting a festival in London that Musgraves headlined. She offered Musgraves’ team her services. They had an opening, and the rest fell into place.

This was three weeks before the release of “Golden Hour,” Musgraves’ fourth studio album that would go on to win Album of the Year at the 2019 Grammys. 

Suddenly, Powell was caught up in a whirlwind. She followed Musgraves on tour with Harry Styles and then shot Musgraves’ “Oh, What a World” tour.

The Grammy win was an exponential change.

“I think she shot up like half a million (Instagram followers) overnight after the Grammys or something absurd like that,” she says.

Powell got her first photos in Rolling Stone — first a small picture and then, a month later, a two-page spread of Musgraves backstage with drag queens.

Paying New York rent to rarely see her apartment finally became too much, so Powell moved to Nashville, where she lives today.

That was in 2019. She published NKD’s last issue four months later.

‘Star-Crossed’

Now Powell could finally focus on her career.

Then COVID-19 struck.

The entertainment industry lurched to a halt, leaving her with few job prospects. It had all the makings to be the worst time of her life.

Instead, she found her life partner.

Powell met William Stone at a 2020 New Year’s party.

“After our first date, he never slept at his own apartment again,” Powell says. 

Six weeks later, his things and his cat, Ellie, moved in.

Dating through a pandemic means Stone knows a lot more about Powell than most relationships of the same length.

“The joke our friends always make is that our relationship is in dog years,” Stone says, because they covered years in the first six months.

“She is amazingly concise, professional, knows everyone, everyone loves her, good at everything she tries to do,” Stone says. “Except maybe hanging shelves.”

Now that the pandemic is nearing its final chapter, things look bright for Powell. In fact, with the release of Musgraves’ newest album, one could say things look “Star-Crossed.”

Stone says that, when they met, Powell had just finished touring with Maren Morris, Kacey Musgraves, Dan + Shay, and Miranda Lambert.

“It’s like, ‘How do you go up from there?’ And she’s somehow found a way,” he says.

‘Just pushing buttons’

But Powell wants to highlight that life in the entertainment industry is not all that it seems from the outside.

“I think a lot of people assume, ‘Oh, you work for someone who is rich, so you must be rich,’” she says. “‘No, man, I am living very firmly in the middle class right now.’”

Some people assume her work is too expensive and unattainable; others think she can cut them a discount.

“I’m not doing well enough for you to not pay me,” she says.

Despite that, she loves her life, and wants to be remembered for “not being an a******.”

“The tombstone could read, ‘Good at what she did and wasn’t rude,’” she says.

Stone wants to emphasize how “universally loved” Powell is.

“It’s amazing that she has managed to be a creative and be the force that she is without being a narcissist,” he says.

Spencer Jordan, one of her Nashville friends, says it took three months of friendship before he found out what Powell does for a living. 

He compliments her on that humility, saying that “she never throws it in anybody’s face” when she does bring up the names she works with.

As for her photography, Powell says it’s just pushing buttons.

It’s her passion, and it’s her livelihood. But it’s not her whole life. She’s an avid Marvel fan, always buying her friends tickets, and a surprisingly good cook, though she’s allergic to bananas.

But it’s not by luck that Powell is at the top of her field — she worked hard to get here, and she’s not stopping now.

Edited by Mary King and Montia Daniels 

By Mary-Kate Appanaitis

At Carrburritos, customers come to buy burritos, margaritas, tacos, and, if they know to look for it, artwork.

Located in the back of the restaurant sits an Art-O-Mat®.  It’s a restored cigarette machine that now doles out pieces of art, imprinted on wooden blocks or contained in small cardboard boxes, replaced every few weeks as customers purchase the available works of art.

Ranging from miniature sculptures to pieces of jewelry, to small wooden canvases painted in oils, each piece of art that comes from the machine is handmade and one-of-a-kind.

The small machine is part of a collection, with the Carrboro location being just one of over 175 venues that host an Art-O-Mat®. Spanning North America, Europe, and Australia, each machine originates from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and from the mind of artist Clark Whittington.

“It’s gone far beyond anything I ever imagined,” Whittington said. “The massive response was nothing I expected.”

In the late 1980’s, Whittington said a friend had a “Pavlovian response” to the sound of crinkling cellophane. The sound of a bag crackling sent him directly to a vending machine for a snack. Whittington became intrigued with the concept of vendable art. He envisioned that such a machine could bring the ease of a midday pick-me-up to the difficult to attain world of art that he had worked in for years.

Growing up as a lone artist

Born and raised in Concord, North Carolina, Whittington grew up immersed in the environment of the rural mill town. While most of his neighbors and family worked in the mills, Whittington’s interest veered toward art. Though mocked throughout his childhood and young-adult life for pursuing something “weird and unimportant,” his mother, a self-taught artist herself, encouraged him to follow his passion.

While he could practice art all he wanted, finding accessible art in his hometown was difficult. The closest galleries were in Charlotte, North Carolina, and were not open to just any passerby who wanted to enjoy artwork in the city.

“There was always an air of pretentiousness in those galleries,” Whittington said. “They didn’t want people to just appreciate their art, they wanted people who would come in and buy it. People who were ‘dressed to the nines’ and had their wallets out. And that wasn’t me at all.”

After graduating from Appalachian State University in 1988 with degrees in both Arts and Graphic Design, Whittington opened his own gallery in downtown Charlotte with the help of two college friends. The Rococo Fish Gallery was brought to life in the North Davidson Arts District and was the first gallery in Charlotte with no price tags connected to the art installations.

Working towards art accessibility 

Whittington’s goal from the start of his career was to create art that gave all sides of the spectrum of his community the chance to experience the gallery. No dress codes, no judgement for those who came in, and no focus on money being made. He collaborated with other local artists in the city who wanted a space to show off their own works, giving a stage to artists who would not have had the name recognition to be placed into other established galleries in Charlotte.

Whittington worked simultaneously as a graphic designer to pay the bills, running the gallery in his free time out of the office. He was committed to keeping his work-life separate from his art, a strong believer that art should not be associated with making money but should instead be focused on spreading love of the arts to people in his community.

This philosophy remained with Whittington.  As rent increased in the gallery, and the expenses of marriage and children became more pressing, Whittington took a step back from creating, focusing purely on graphic design work to provide for his growing family. It wasn’t until inspiration struck him with the concept of the Art-O-Mat® after moving to Winston-Salem that he once again was able to create art of his own consistently.

Art-O-Mat® takes the world

The first Art-O-Mat® machine was put into commission in 1997, at a solo art exhibit in a cafe in Winston-Salem featuring Whittington’s artwork. The machine, restored through hand-painting by Whittington and filled with miniature prints of his own creation, was a hit. Art was available on-demand for the low price of five dollars, and the citizens of Winston-Salem were captivated with the concept.

Restaurants, bars, hotels, and cafes all around the city began requesting an installment of their own Art-O-Mat® for their businesses, and Whittington became overwhelmed with the amount of art in demand. He reached out to local artists who were interested in collaborating on the project, and the company Artists in Cellophane was initiated, launching its first set of Art-O-Mat®’s.

The cigarette machines were relatively easy to source for the project, as they had recently become banned in the city of Winston-Salem and were being given away for little to no price. Whittington and his team painstakingly refurbished each of them with a freshly painted exterior, and handmade each of the pieces of art displayed on the blocks distributed from the machine.

Whittington watched as his creation of the Art-O-Mat® enabled people of all levels of income and art expertise to purchase and possess their very own custom piece of art. With the low cost, art reached communities previously unable to afford the experience of owning one-of-a-kind work; communities Whittington identified with personally, after being considered an outsider in his childhood. Too artsy for the people in Concord to understand, yet not artistic enough to be accepted in Charlotte.

Sticking to what matters most

Within only a few years, Art-O-Mat®’s had expanded far beyond the city line of Winston-Salem, and Whittington shifted to working entirely with the company, foregoing his day job of graphic design. As the machines were sent first across the country and then internationally, Whittington had to expand his artist list to keep up with the increasing demand for art supply. In each location an Art-O-Mat® was placed, he contacted local artists to recruit volunteers interested in creating art for the masses. Each piece of submitted artwork is sent to Whittington and his team at Artists in Cellophane and approved by him before being sent out for installation into the Art-O-Mat®’s.

“Our Art-O-Mat® is definitely something that people come back for,” said Sophie Thurber, an employee at Carrburritos. “We have to send out for more art every few weeks, and we aren’t even offering in-person dining right now.”

Though his work has infiltrated some of the most highly regarded art galleries in the country, such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Whittington remains humbly committed that the art he creates is truly for everyone. He chooses his venues and artists for the Art-O-Mat®’s carefully, to ensure the people and places he works with are on the same page about what matters most in his work: the community’s ability to experience art, regardless of their social or economic status.

“This is an art project, not a venture capital scheme,” he said. “My work has always been about making art equitable, and that’s really what I try to do.”

 

Edited by Eva Hagan

 

 

By Benjamin Rappaport

Annabelle Brown is on the hunt. She sits on the steps of the Pit on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus and surveys her surroundings.

Too boring, not enough color, no pizzaz.

She stalks for a while until she sees it. Floral patterned pants with a bright orange lace top and combat boots.

“Oh, that’s the one,” she says. “That’s so retro.”

With the target acquired, she begins her approach. Brown leaves her bag in the middle of campus, unattended, and runs after the girl with the floral pants walking in the opposite direction. The girl struts with her head bopping along to the beats pumping through her headphones.

Brown taps her on the shoulder with a cautious smile.

“Hi, I’m Annabelle. I just wanted to say I love your outfit. Do you mind if I take a picture of it?”

The target is hesitant at first but eventually agrees after Brown explains she runs an Instagram account, Tar Heel Threads, where she posts funky outfits she spots on campus.

Brown pulls out her phone to show off the page.

“That’s so sick. I love it. I’m Hannah by the way.”

Hannah Kaufman, a fellow UNC student, poses while Brown kneels to get a low-angle shot of the whole outfit. Brown zooms in on subtle aspects of Kaufman’s clothes that catch her eye — a golden butterfly chain necklace, zigzag stitching on the combat boots and a sunflower ring on her left hand.  

The two hug and thank one another. Brown then promises to edit the post and have it up on the Instagram page as soon as possible.

A community of ‘funky friends’

The page has amassed more than 1,700 followers since Brown started it in September.  

“They’re all my little funky friends in their funky fits,” Brown said.

She started the page to encourage her peers to break out of the mundane. Dressing to the nines was her way to do just that.

As a sophomore who is attending her first year of in-person classes at UNC-CH, Brown said she wanted to form a community on campus that matched her energy and explosive self-expression.

She said she often uses her own sense of style to give herself energy. She has battled depression and anxiety since middle school, but wearing an outfit that makes a statement gives her a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

“The little compliments I would get on my outfits would get me through the harder days,” Brown said. “No matter how crummy I felt one day, I still had to get up and get dressed.”

It was those passing smiles, the “I see you girl” from strangers and the positive aura she would feel when she put effort into an outfit that she wanted to inspire others to have too.

Because the premise of the page involves approaching strangers on campus, one might imagine that Brown is a social butterfly. She, however, says that aspect of her personality has only come about in the past year.

For Brown, the page is also about fostering a sense of community she didn’t have before. While approaching new people is sometimes difficult because of her anxiety, the possibility of a new friend and the opportunity to make someone’s day pushes Brown out of her comfort zone.

“After a year of isolation, I am just desperate for something bigger than myself,” Brown said. “I wanted community so badly that I was willing to try anything.”

The DISCO mindset 

Now with a decent audience on campus, Brown said people will recognize her and ask to have their photo taken for the page. Some students, like Xavier Nix, even started dressing up just for the chance to be featured.

“Annabelle is such a fashion icon,” Nix said. “If she picks me out of the crowd, maybe that makes me a fashion icon too.”

Nix is now a member of what Brown calls her paparazzi — people that help Brown spot outfits when she is out on campus. While there are currently only two paparazzi members, Brown said she likes keeping the team small.

“I feel like we are giving individuals the opportunity to share their looks on a larger platform,” Nix said. “I also just love the diversity of people and styles we’ve been able to find.”

The diversity of styles and people featured has become a pillar of Brown’s vision for the page. She calls it the DISCO mindset, which stands for diversity, inclusivity, sustainability, creativity and opportunity. Those aspects are driving the types of outfits she chooses to post on the account. It also provides a way for Brown to hold herself accountable.

“The goal of Tar Heel Threads was never to center myself as a white woman,” she said. “I want to see people of all sexualities, gender expressions and racial backgrounds exploring the fun of fashion with me.”

The focus on the DISCO mindset is part of why she employed the help of Nix, a queer Black man.

“It takes a lot to recognize that you, as a white person, have an unconscious bias,” Nix said. “That Annabelle could do that and then say, ‘I know I’m going to accidentally choose too many white people for this page.’ It really says a lot about her character.”

Spreading individualism 

As the page’s following grows at UNC-CH, the idea is taking hold on other campuses too. Brown said she has been asked by people at Wake Forest University, the University of South Carolina and more if they can start their own version of Tar Heel Threads.

While Brown said she does not have a plan to expand the account or her paparazzi team on campus, she loves the idea of having college campuses around the country showing off their finest fashion.

Annabelle Brown will continue going on her hunts for the best fashion the UNC-CH community has to offer, and she hopes if you’re a target it’ll give you a little spark to keep being out of the ordinary.

“Everyone deserves a chance to feel special,” Brown said. “You dress for you, and I am so happy to see all the individualism people are confident showing off.”

Edited by Isabella Sherk

By Sammy Ferris

Like ravenous ants attracted to the pheromones left by those who came before, estate sale buyers file into houses of the deceased, one-by-one, sniffing out their harvest for the day. Buzzing and hunting, each one is attracted to a different aroma.

Caroline Le, 21, scurries to the women’s wardrobe, hungry to find a decadent collection of lingerie to bring back to her nest. Amid the flowers of 80s wallpaper and the sheen of gold metal bedposts, she sifts through a stranger’s closet. Under a heap of clothing, she spots her feast: a chili red corset. She snatches it, imagining what it will look like in her next photo shoot.

Coping with clothing

In May of 2020, Le founded Vintage by Caro. Branded with her nickname, it is a clothing brand that sells vintage and secondhand clothing. The mission hinges on honoring those who wore the pieces first and appreciating clothing for the story it tells through its details.

The business was an idea forged in a mind hot with grief and stoked by the fires of family tradition. Le decided to meld her passions into one creation.

A few months before Le started Vintage by Caro, she lost her best friend Raj to suicide.

She met Raj when she was 10 years old, in Monterey, California. They were two kids bouncing through the transition into adulthood on the trampoline in his backyard. Friendship that started because they bonded over being short, they found comfort in their similar stature and shared living experiences in Asian-American culture. When the time came for them to go to college, they stayed close. He attended Duke University, and she went to UNC-Chapel Hill.

Le describes hearing the news as a full-body visceral reaction. It shifted her towards a mindset that she did not have prior to his death.

“It showed me that if I want to pursue something, there is no better time than now. And if I don’t appreciate the small things and the beauty in life then it’s just going to pass me by,” she said.

Vintage clothing is unlike fast fashion. It was curated with longevity and craftsmanship in mind. Back then, designers doted on the bustiers and lace teddies that Le loves with the attention to detail like helicopter parents of an only child. Adorned and cradled, these clothing items possess a sense of purpose.

Exactly the kind of care and intentional design that Le decided to live with in honor of Raj.

Threads of tradition

Le first started vintage shopping for leisure with her mother, Colette Le. For their family, thrifting is multigenerational, and it connects Le to her Vietnamese identity.

“My mom and I have gone secondhand shopping, specifically vintage shopping, since I was little because it was ingrained in her from her mom. They came over to this country from Vietnam with little financial means. My grandma would always say ‘there is treasure in someone’s past. You just have to dig to find it,’” Le said.

This tradition has a deep meaning for Le. It ties her to her family’s history and the future she hopes to see. She is passionate about healthcare, particularly for older Americans. Vintage by Caro represents an effort to bridge the generational gap. Le hopes that by providing millennials and Gen Z with clothing from older generations, she can cultivate a sense of awareness about caring for those who wore the pieces first.

Vintage by Caro has become a thread in her tightly knit identity. During her first few years at UNC-Chapel Hill, Le was designing a persona from the scraps of others. Returning home during the COVID-19 pandemic and grieving Raj offered her the opportunity to reevaluate who she is and who she wants to be.

She began thrifting with her mom again and relit her connection to her heritage. Combining her newfound philosophy with identity, Vintage by Caro moved her forward through remembering Raj’s life and her family’s past.

Her best friend and roommate, Maria Rita Furtado, said that when they reunited in 2021 after a year of separation and of Vintage by Caro, she could see a palpable difference in Le.

“I can see that you know who you are,” Furtado said.

“For a while, I wanted to be a little bit of everyone else, and that’s what I was building myself on. With Vintage by Caro, it is all my interest, my own, and through it, I feel like I am me,” replied Le.

“When you go to a school like UNC – with a lot of cliques and white privilege and especially when you’re a child of immigrants – a lot of your life is assimilating. It is trying to look like everyone else, trying to be like everyone else. But you have really stepped into your own,” said Furtado.

A lasting impact

Le strives to bring the her self-growth to Vintage by Caro’s community. Her Instagram serves as a digital coffee shop: a space on social media to meet people in an ambiance of comfort and warmth. Each post is offered like a free cup to her following. She calls friends to come on in and try something new. Only, what’s new is actually vintage, and coffee cups are blouses and bodices.

Her reach extends beyond North Carolina. Recently, she received a direct message from a college student named Izzy who lives in Chicago.

“I love this business, I love this mission, and I am here to support it,” Izzy wrote.

Since that first message, Izzy has been one of Le’s most frequent customers. She represents the ripple effect on which the business has built. Friends of friends spreading Le’s message about appreciating craftsmanship and each other.

She describes her following as loyal and diverse, and she is steadfast about her mission to cultivate community.

Photographer for Vintage by Caro Rainey Scarborough said that being part of this movement makes collaborating a more gratifying experience.

“When I take a photo for her, I think how someone’s going to buy this, wear it, and it’s going to be part of this larger chain of events. I like participating in something that inspires people. It creates community and helps give back,” she said.

In less than a year, Le graduates from college and enters the next phase of her life. As a public health major, she hopes to keep bridging the generational gap by helping older Americans with their healthcare. She does not know exactly what that will mean for Vintage by Caro, but she now has the trust in herself to not fear that uncertainty.

She says she is not sure that if Raj was alive Vintage Caro would exist. Her business is a lining in her life made from threads of his memory.

Vintage by Caro is a handwritten invitation to join the party. One where the attendees are wearing brightly colored dresses, and the ice is served in a crystal container. Le will greet you at the door with her past, present, and future stitched on her sleeve. Her patches of honor.

Edited by Em Welsh

By Emery Summey

She dedicated 17 years of her life to the sport, yet it only took one faulty landing to change the course of Leah Gneco’s gymnastics career. At the age of 21, the former collegiate gymnast received her fourth ACL reconstruction surgery, and her fifth surgery total.

A few days after her 16th birthday, Gneco was on the balance beam at gymnastics practice, gearing up for her dismount. She had been training extra hard in preparation for a college coach coming the next day. As Gneco zoned in and hurdled for the roundoff, her foot missed the beam.

Crack.

Despite the pop in her neck, Gneco remained calm. It was 15 minutes later when her hands went numb, and Gneco’s parents rushed her to the emergency room. They learned that Gneco had torn ligaments between her fourth and fifth vertebrae and also crushed her spinal disk. The injury required Gneco to undergo surgery if she ever wanted to be active again. After two plates, eight screws and a cadaver bone, everything was fused back together. Gneco was back doing gymnastics three months after the surgery, unaware of the four major knee surgeries she would later undergo.

Dusting herself off

In 2017, a week before the regional championships, Gneco was training on the balance beam during practice. She was setting up to finish her back handspring back layout when her right knee popped out of place upon landing. Gneco noticed her knee began to swell, but continued with practice and even participated in conditioning. She eventually went to the ER with her parents, where she was referred to an orthopedic surgeon and received an MRI. 

Torn.

 “I’m sorry to tell you this Leah, but your right ACL is torn and we need to schedule surgery to fix this,” Dr. Dasti said. 

  “So, my junior prom is next week, and I already bought my dress,” Gneco said. “I still really want to go. Is there any way we can schedule the surgery after prom?”

 “Yeah, we can do that,” Dr. Dasti laughed. “But you’ll need to be on crutches until your surgery.”

 Gneco agreed to the deal, knowing she wouldn’t take those crutches to prom. 

With junior year being crucial to the college recruiting process, Gneco felt down about not being able to attend college gymnastics camps over the summer or show her skills to coaches during practice. Nevertheless, she remained optimistic that her body would heal quickly, and she would return to her old self in no time. After a nine-month recovery, Gneco was back to her normal training schedule.

Familiar feeling

Almost a year later to the date, Gneco was once again on the balance beam training for regionals. She was setting up for her series, back handspring back layout when she landed and felt a familiar pop in her right knee. She finished her workouts and even continued training for the next week, in denial of the hard truth. When she could no longer bear the pain, Gneco went to a new orthopedic surgeon specializing in female athletes and received her second MRI scan. 

Torn.

 “Hi Leah, my name is Dr. McCarthy,” she said. “I see you’ve been through this before, but unfortunately you have torn your ACL again.”

  “Yeah, I could feel the exact same thing as last time, but I thought I could keep pushing through and go to nationals,” Gneco said.

Dr. McCarthy shook her head in disappointment.

“We are going to have to schedule another surgery to fix your ACL and I would like to do it pretty soon.”

Gneco made a face.

“Last year I postponed the surgery so I could go to my junior prom … will I be able to go to prom after my surgery?”

“Yes, you can go to prom after,” Dr. McCarthy said. “But you will have to be on crutches, and you will probably be in a bit of pain.”

 Gneco smiled and agreed, knowing that this time she couldn’t avoid the crutches.

Slow and steady

With her senior year over and a 13-month recovery ahead of her, Gneco headed to UNC-Chapel Hill to start summer classes. She slowly began rehab, weightlifting and eventually gymnastics. Entering college as an athlete, Gneco felt the excitement and pressure to deliver her gymnastics skills. She was thrilled to compete and contribute to the team, but also skeptical about what her knee could handle.

Throughout preseason during her sophomore year, Gneco frequently felt her knee pop out of place or lock up. It seemed like something was wrong, but her desire to compete in college was strong. One day in practice, Gneco had one more bar routine and asked her coach if she could leave out the dismount because her knee was feeling sore. Coach left the decision up to Gneco, who decided to go for it. As soon as she landed, she felt her right knee get blown out again. This time, Gneco was in too much pain to even stand up. She was familiar with the routine, but this time was different–Gneco instantly knew her gymnastics career was over.

Gneco went to UNC-CH’s knee and ankle specialist, Dr. Jeffrey T. Spang, who said that her ACL was torn once again. This time, however, she would have to undergo two surgeries to fix her knee. The first surgery would be in February to remove and regrow her ACL, while the second one would be in June to go back in and complete the reconstruction. With an 18-month recovery ahead of her, Gneco was devastated by the abrupt end to her gymnastics career.

A new normal

By the start of her junior year, Gneco had a slim chance of ever returning to gymnastics and decided to medically retire. With so much of her identity focused around the sport, she had to create a new normal for her everyday life.

Currently in her senior year, Gneco has found the positive side of medical retirement. Not having to spend 20 or more hours a week in the gym has given her time to focus on her future. Now, Gneco is working at Labcorp, has completed all of her medical school applications and is exploring new interests such as cooking and baking. Fifteen months out of surgery, she is still not cleared to do high levels of physical activity. However, Gneco’s love for gymnastics remains.

“Gymnastics has been my whole life for the past 18 years,” she says. “It has taught me to be resilient, adaptable and to push through challenges in all areas of my life. I have sacrificed so much of myself for the sport, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Edited by: Natalie Huschle

By Jackson Moseley

Daniel Manila sits by the gameboard on the living room coffee table, intently contemplating his next move in the strategy game Catan. He glances at the board, then at his resource cards, then back at the board. The gears turning in his brain are almost visible.

The game is a close one. Three of the four players have almost enough victory points to win. At this rate, anyone could take home the victory crown.

But suddenly, a flicker of recognition appears in Daniel’s eyes, and a knowing smile spreads across his face and curves into a smirk.

“Good game,” he says. In one fell swoop, he makes his move and snags the last two points that he needed to claim the victory.

The other three competitors roll their eyes and groan, but they harbor no feelings of indignation. This outcome was expected. Daniel’s affinity for board games is well-known among his friends. Few play against him expecting to win.

Daniel has loved playing games of all sorts ever since he was old enough to understand and abide by basic rules. Strategy games like Catan are some of his favorites.

In many regards, Daniel is a typical American college-aged adult. He goes to school at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he studies computer science. He enjoys playing games, reading, programming and hanging out with friends. For the most part, he fits right in with everybody else (aside from his overall lack of pop culture knowledge). Most people wouldn’t guess upon first meeting him that Daniel has actually spent relatively little time in the United States over the course of his life.

How it all began

Daniel was born in Durham, North Carolina, but has spent most of his life in Central Asia, where his parents do nonprofit work. When Daniel was 5 months old, his family moved to Uzbekistan. However, after seven years, they were forced out of the country, and after a yearlong period of moving around, they moved to Kyrgyzstan, where they have lived ever since.

From an early age, Daniel’s love for games was one of his defining characteristics. His parents recall how he used to organize outdoor games among groups of total strangers on the playground when they would visit his grandparents’ house in the U.S.

“You wanna play tag?” he would ask the other kids. And with that, dozens of small children were running around the playground, chasing each other and having a blast—all thanks to Daniel.

Daniel wasn’t just content to play though. He wanted to win. His parents recall a time when he was 8 years old, playing a game of Phase 10 with them and a group of college students during the brief period that they lived in England. Daniel was losing badly, but he fought desperately to hide the tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t want the big kids to see him cry.

A complex story

Daniel’s refusal to cry in this situation is reflective of his overall tendency to conceal his emotions behind a calm, collected demeanor. But behind his composed exterior is a very goofy and lively individual. His younger sister, Faith, frequently found herself both annoyed and amused by Daniel. She recounted a time many years ago when her brother stuck his tongue out at her during the blessing before family dinner. Faith couldn’t stop herself from laughing and ended up getting in trouble for his antics. 

Every couple of years, the Manila family went back to the U.S. for a few months at a time. But they never stayed there long. In fact, Daniel estimates that he spent a total of only three or four years in the U.S. prior to starting college at UNC-CH.

Daniel’s time in the U.S. was not particularly restful. Much of it was spent going from house to house, getting dinner with families in hopes of raising support for their nonprofit work. Daniel and Faith dreaded these meetings and found themselves bored to tears when the families they visited had no children their age.

Between two worlds

For Daniel, Kyrgyzstan was home. Though he was American by both background and citizenship, Kyrgyzstan was what he knew best.

Yet, even in Kyrgyzstan, there was a disconnect between him and the locals. For one, he didn’t speak the language particularly well. Though he knew some Kyrgyz, it was hard for him to communicate more abstract concepts, making it impossible to have anything other than superficial conversation. As a result, most of his friends were Europeans who happened to be in the area, with whom he could communicate in English. 

The struggle to assimilate

Coming to UNC was certainly a shock for Daniel. Having been homeschooled his entire life, this was his first experience in a physical, brick-and-mortar school. In addition, many of his preconceived notions about what constituted American culture turned out to be false, only reflecting white American culture.

The first few weeks of school were especially hard for Daniel. In addition to being an outsider, he struggled with social anxiety, and these factors combined made it difficult for him to form close friendships. For someone who identifies as an extrovert, as Daniel does, this was especially trying.

Full circle

However, as time went on, he began to form those friendships that he so desperately craved. He enjoyed hanging out with the other guys in his hall, and he grew close to the people in his small group for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the campus ministry that he joined.

It was also through playing games that these friendships formed. Daniel frequently brought board games to the first floor lounge of Everett Residence Hall, asking those who were already there if they wanted to join in. It was just like the games of tag on the playground that he used to organize as a kid.

Daniel’s friendships have persisted to the present day, particularly with those in his InterVarsity small group. And he maintains those friendships through playing games, among other things.

Remembering home

While Daniel has grown close to these friends, however, physical distance has made it difficult for him to maintain that same level of connection with his family. He only sees them in person once or twice per year, and the 10-hour time difference makes phone communication difficult to coordinate.

But he remains close to them nonetheless. He flies back to Kyrgyzstan once a year to see his family, and this year, they flew back to the U.S. for the summer. Faith said that some of her fondest memories of her brother are from when he came back to visit over Christmas break after his first semester of college.

Despite growing up abroad, Daniel says that he wants to make his permanent residence in the U.S. He appreciates the work that his parents do, but he believes that it is not for him. Living outside of one’s culture is not something to be taken lightly, he said, based on his own experience.

Yet there will always be a place in Daniel’s heart for the country where he was raised. In many ways, it shaped him into the man he is today.

Edited by Isa Mudannayake

By Hailey Stiehl

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

As the summer of 2021 began, it felt like some normalcy was slipping back into our lives for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. For healthcare workers, like Emergency Room Physician, Dr. Colleen Casey, this sense of normalcy was the light at the end of the COVID-filled tunnel.

Recently Casey and her colleagues at UNC Rex Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina began to see fewer COVID patients as the vaccine became widely available. When they ventured outside for a cup of coffee during their breaks, they weren’t as concerned about sitting six feet apart. They left their masks off outside and spoke to each other, about their summer and travel plans they needed after everything they had been through.

“I remember mid-summer not seeing a single COVID patient for four weeks,” Casey said. “It truly felt like the world was opening back up, and our lives would go back to normal.”

A Resurgence in Cases

One weekend towards the end of summer caught Casey’s attention. Four patients were admitted with COVID-like symptoms, a major red flag after not seeing any COVID-19 patients for almost a month. The patients tested positive for the virus, marking a negative shift in plans for a full reopening.

The Delta variant’s surge through North Carolina communities, particularly in those that are unvaccinated, has led to increased hospitalization rates. Healthcare providers are once again facing mounting levels of burnout and fatigue as they battle another surge of the virus.

“Our local hospitals are now full and overwhelmed again,” Casey said. “With all of this happening and having to go back to the way things were during our last peak of COVID, my mental health is taking a significant dive.”

Casey works in the ER but has been helping in Rex Hospital’s COVID unit for the duration of the pandemic. The hospital is currently experiencing a shortage of beds, respirators, nurses and hospital staff. The stress of shortages and extreme work hours combined with the rising cases, has left doctors like Dr. Kenny Michau II, short on compassion for unvaccinated patients.

“I would say I find it hard to have sympathy in caring for people who didn’t get vaccinated for any particular reason, or because of misinformation, and now are very entitled about the medical care they should receive,” Michau II said. “It’s like they don’t trust science but then want science to ‘fix them’.”

Recently, Casey treated a 30-year-old unvaccinated patient who was hospitalized with COVID-19. As Casey made her rounds, the patient repeatedly asked Casey if there was anything she could do, or any medications she could take to make her feel better. Casey said the patient stared back at her in disbelief when she answered with a simple no, as there was nothing more she could do for them.

“They had the opportunity to do something for themselves in the six months prior when they could have gotten vaccinated,” Casey said. “This is part of the reason why we’re now back at what feels like square one.”

The Exhausting Toll

Being exposed to COVID-19 all day isn’t just stressful for Casey and her colleagues’ mental and physical health. It has trickled into their personal lives, impacting their home life and families. Casey’s husband, Tim Miller, has seen the hardships that his wife has experienced from working on the front line of the pandemic.

After every shift, Casey had to take off all of her work clothes in the garage, then immediately shower before seeing her family. There were times when she had to isolate herself in separate rooms in her home for days, away from her husband and children, in fear of spreading the virus to them.

“It was hard for so long having to live like that, in fear that Colleen could potentially give us COVID,” Miller said. “When you come home from work and can’t be around your family because you’re worried of the potential risks of spreading the virus, that’s a heavy burden to carry.”

Dr. Christine Knettel, Vice-Chair of Emergency Medicine at UNC Rex Hospital, has two children under the age of 10, and has faced similar fears of spreading the virus to her family and children.

“During the pandemic, rough days at work have become increasingly more common because of everything we’ve had to see and face,” Knettel said. “And when you have a rough day and all you want to do is go home and hug your kids, but you’re terrified to potentially pass COVID to them. It’s been immensely stressful to now have that additional weight on your shoulders as a parent who works in healthcare with cases climbing again.”

In addition to the fatigue and mental burdens of once again being on the front line against COVID, the emotional toll of the situation has worsened for Casey and her co-workers. Casey recently signed three death certificates in one day due to COVID-19. With hospital restrictions not allowing for family visitation, most of these patients passed without family by their side.

“That kind of thing is heartbreaking to see not only as a doctor but as a human being,” Casey said. “This shouldn’t be happening with a vaccine widely available for most people.”

As Casey and her coworkers are once again required to wear protective equipment to fight against COVID, they think back to the early days of this summer. Days when they saw a drop in cases, when they only needed surgical masks to see patients, and when they thought the battle would soon be over. As cases climb and burnout grows, Casey hopes that the populations responsible for driving the COVID-19 surge will think about helping the community return to normal.

“The choice of individuals to not go get vaccinated at this point is putting me at risk, putting my family at risk, putting my mental health at risk and putting my patients at risk,” Casey said. “I hope that all who can get vaccinated go and do their part to end this so we can fully enjoy all that normal life has to offer.”

Edited by Peitra Knight

By Jordan Holloway

The UNC-Chapel Hill men’s club volleyball team competed in a tournament at UNC Charlotte on Feb. 29, 2020. Little did they know, that would be their final competition for the next 19 months. 

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced club sports at UNC-CH to pause practices and games for an unknown amount of time.

Sports clubs were given the green light to resume regular practices and competitions in the fall 2021 semester.

Despite a lengthy hiatus, the men’s club volleyball team seemed to not have missed a beat or lost any skills, with their “A” and “B” teams placing first and third in their first tournament of the semester on Sept. 25, 2021.

Strong chemistry and strong relationships 

Drew Campbell, the club’s president, speaks highly of the players’ passion for the game. Despite the pause in practices and competitions, he thinks both teams were successful in the recent tournament because of their great relationships with one another. 

“I think that since we have had such great chemistry over the years and seeing it carry over into this year, that is definitely one of the reasons we were victorious in our first tournament,” Campbell said. 

Despite men’s volleyball not being very popular in North Carolina, the club is still able to draw players who are eager to learn more about the sport and have fun at the same time.

Campbell thinks the players’ eagerness and dedication have allowed them to gel well together and be successful on the court recently.

“At the end of the season, I hope the guys on the team will be able to look back and be confident that they got better at the sport, but also built strong relationships with their teammates,” he said. 

Because of the lengthy pause in both practices and competitions, Campbell hopes the team enjoys the time they have together playing the game and becoming better teammates. 

“We learned a bunch about how much we all love playing volleyball when we weren’t allowed to play during the pandemic,” Campbell said. “I told the guys to enjoy every second because it could be taken away at any point if COVID cases begin to spike again.”

 Practice makes perfect

Jalen Johnson, a senior and four-year member of the club, did not play volleyball before coming to UNC-CH. However, he had a strong interest in the game and wanted to develop his skills. 

Johnson did not try out for the club team the first semester of his freshman year. Instead, he joined an intramural team that played once a week to help him learn more about the sport.

“I wanted to try out for the team my first semester, but I thought I didn’t know much about the game so I wouldn’t be quite ready,” he said. “Joining an IM team was awesome because I got to gradually learn more and more about the sport every week, while also having fun with friends.”

Johnson believes the practice he received playing intramural every week allowed him to hone the skills needed to join the club team.

Now, he is the starting right side attacker for the club team, but he’s also a leader that the younger players on the team can look up to.

“I think the story of the team’s success recently really aligns with my story and how practicing really does make you better,” Johnson said. “I’ve noticed in the past that some guys haven’t really bought in to the team and missed several practices. This year I think it’s different because we have guys that are always consistently at practice, and I think the results from that were seen at our first tournament a few weeks ago.”

 A fresh start

Creed Mainz, a junior on the men’s club volleyball team, believes that the return to normalcy from the pandemic has been no easy task, but being able to play volleyball again has made the transition much easier. 

“Putting that jersey on again is such an amazing feeling that words cannot describe,” Mainz said.

One of the aspects that Mainz thinks is unique about the club team this year is the mix of older and younger players.

“We have an interesting mix of guys this year which allows everyone to create new friendships,” he said. “As an older player, I have already made great friends with some of the younger guys on the team, and I think that has allowed us to grow not only on the court, but off the court as well.”

Mainz believes the mix of younger and older talent has allowed the team to develop new plays. It also creates a better offensive and defensive threat, which was noticeable in the recent tournament.

“In previous years, I think some of the more local teams like State and Duke were knowledgeable about what plays we ran and who our better players were,” he said. “After the COVID pause, we not only were able to create new plays but we got new weapons in the younger guys that we could implement into our game plan.”

Trust in your teammate

Andy Jin, one of the underclassmen on the team, is no stranger to the sport. He played consistently prior to college, both on his high school team in Maryland and on an AAU club team.

Jin believes an important aspect of any team is trust. Although it is still early in the season, he thinks the team members have already developed a strong reliance on one another, evident in tight sets during the first tournament. 

“One game that really sticks out in my mind was the ‘A’ team’s final game against UNC Wilmington,” he said. “We were in the final set and we were down two points. We took a timeout, and the guys really stepped up and placed trust in one another to come back from the deficit. And we did that, scoring four straight points to take the victory.”

Jin is thankful to be able to play volleyball in college. Because of the pandemic, his high school seasons were interrupted. But now, he is able to continue playing the sport he loves so deeply. 

“I am so glad to have a great group of guys that I can continue playing volleyball with in college,” Jin said. “The older guys have been so welcoming and have made this transition from high school to college — but also pandemic life to a more sense of ‘normalcy’ — worthwhile.”

Edited by Claire Tynan