SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Ashley Adams

"We've had a great season, and we are actually still having fun!"

Senior outside hitter Ashley Adams has only been a Bulldog for a year but has made an immediate impact and has been an integral part of Samford’s success in 2008. After finishing her undergraduate degree in three years, she transferred to Samford to continue her education at the Cumberland School of Law, and somehow found herself playing volleyball for the Bulldogs.

Adams came to Samford from Middle Tennessee State where she enjoyed a very successful career. As a junior, she helped lead the Blue Raiders to a Sweet 16 appearance in the 2007 NCAA Volleyball Tournament.

As a freshman, she was the first player in school history and just the second from the Sun Belt to be named AVCA Player of the Week. She received similar honors as a sophomore, including two Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Week honors and All-South Region. She also set the record for best hitting percentage in a single match at Western Kentucky.

In 2007, she was named to the Pre-season All-Sun Belt team, Most Valuable Player at every preseason tournament, named Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Week twice again and Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year. She was voted onto the 2007 All-Sun Belt first team, named the Sun Belt Tournament MVP, and named AVCA Honorable Mention All-American for the second year in a row.

However much success she had with the Blue Raiders, volleyball became more of a chore for her than an exciting privilege.

“I’d done the whole being on a really good team thing,” Adams said. “We had gone to the Sweet 16. It was fun to win but it wasn’t fun to play volleyball. I hated volleyball. I was like, ‘I’m done.’ And when I came here, I really wasn’t going to play.”

After arriving on campus, Adams decided to research the volleyball team on the website and soon was encouraged by her former club volleyball coach to play her final year of eligibility with the Bulldogs. Adams approached Samford head coach Derek Schroeder about joining the team and he and the squad welcomed Adams with open arms.

“When I decided to play, I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen,” Adams said. “I knew that it would definitely not be as stressful as Middle Tennessee. I wasn’t really expecting much because of the previous record and I was very pleasantly surprised. We’ve had a great season, and we are actually still having fun.”

Adams has been able to enjoy the Bulldogs’ success so far, the best record in school history (22-3), the most wins in a season (22), the longest home win streak (10) and earlier this season, the longest win streak in school history (12). She has also led the team in kills (331) and attempts (736) and ranks second on the single-season list for hitting percentage with .342 so far this season. She earned a spot in the AVCA 30-Kills Club earlier this season when she notched a career-high 31 kills in Samford’s five-set match against Murray State at the Crimson Tide Invitational.

Also this season, Adams became the first Bulldog to be named Southern Conference Player of the Week twice. She has also ranked among the nation’s best in kills per set and hitting percentage and has led the conference in kills throughout the season.

With all the success, Adams has juggled a load of first year law school classes. And she says she has enjoyed every minute of it. Her teammates have been a large part of her success, enjoyment and appreciation for the year.

“Not only do I enjoy playing volleyball here, I enjoy playing with these girls,” Adams said. “The team is really important. I want to play well because I love these girls and I love this team and I’m playing for these girls. It’s not like I play well because I want my stats to go up or anything. I feel like I don’t want to let my teammates down. If I trust a teammate enough that I know that she’s going to go for a ball, I need to do the same for her. We just have that trust like we don’t want to let each other down, and that’s why we play so hard for each other.”

Adams is not a stranger to being the new kid in town. When she was growing up, she moved around a lot. She was born in Valencia, Calif., and lived there for 10 years. When she was ten, Adams’ family moved to Columbus, Ohio and lived there for six years. When she was in high school, she moved to St. Louis and finished her final two years of high school there before moving to Murfreesboro, Tenn., to attend Middle Tennessee State. While she was in college, her parents moved to Arizona and just this past year, they moved back to Columbus and live right down the street from where they lived several years ago.

Adams started playing volleyball in a recreational league when she was in fourth grade. She played basketball and softball as well, but soon gave up both after realizing she had a natural volleyball talent. When she reached high school, she gave up basketball and softball to concentrate on volleyball, playing varsity at school and club on the side.

She attributes all of her success to her parents. They were the ones that woke up in the wee hours of the morning to drive her to club tournaments and spent the money to let her play.

“They drove me to every single practice and every club tournament,” Adams said. “My mom always said, ‘I’m not going to come drag you out of bed. If you want to play, I’ll drive you wherever you need to go and we’ll pay for whatever needs to happen, but I’m not going to force to play’.”

Her parents never missed a match of her in high school and continued to follow every match of her college career either through live stats or video streaming.

One of Adams’ quirks is that she is very superstitious, but only when it comes to volleyball.

“I have to put on everything in the same order,” Adams says. “I have to start with my right leg. I do socks, socks, knee pad, knee pad, ankle brace, ankle brace. Then I have to do, tie it, tie it. I go from left to right the whole time. I have to do that. I always wear two hair bands in my hair, but I only put on in. And I will not fix my hair during warm-ups. I always leave my other hair band on my wrist and we are not supposed to. So, I always wait until the ref comes over to me before the game and tells me to take it off. Then during the National Anthem, I have to say a prayer. I have to start when the National Anthem starts and I have to be done before it ends.”

The future lawyer says she is now thinking about concentrating on sports law.

“I’m kind of leaning towards sports law and working with the NCAA in compliance and those kinds of things. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get away from sports. You can’t just play sports your whole life and then just stop. I think I will be involved with sports and athletes forever.”