Four Olympic volleyball players on Team USA who all trained at the same gym in Aurora get special recognition as they live out a dream they helped build together.
“Not only are they the best, you know, athletes from our program and in our country, but they’re true people of character,” said Stephan Hewitt, boys’ program director at Sports Performance Volleyball. “They are people who are truly proud representatives of everything we strive for our kids to achieve here both on and off the field.”
These representatives, Thomas Jaeschke and Jeffrey Jendryk on the men’s team and Lauren Carlini and Kelsey Cook on the women’s team, have been in Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
“It’s really cool for our athletes to see them pass and be successful and defend at a really high level, and to know that everything they practice here is exactly what they practiced when they were here,” he said.
More than 100 boys, all incoming high school seniors, attended Friday morning summer camp at the facility, learning new skills and training for the upcoming club season.
“We have a slogan on the back of our jersey that says ‘I survived for our summer camps,’ and we pride ourselves on being America’s toughest volleyball camp,” he says. “So kids come here and they know the practice is going to be intense , it’s going to be fast-paced, it’s going to try to replicate a lot of what they’re seeing in the Olympics right now.”
Although the camp can be tough, Hewitt said the kids are dedicated and motivated to learn and be the best.
This weekend they cheer on the women’s team as they compete for gold.
“We won the last Olympics in 2021 in Tokyo and that was the first gold medal ever for our women’s national team, so to be able to see them go back-to-back, you know hopefully repeat, defend their title is pretty cool,” he said.
At the same time, the men’s team secured a bronze medal in competition on Friday.
Hewitt is hoping for a big win on Sunday and knows for future athletes on and off the volleyball court, anything is possible.
“Not only proud of the athletes that we’re representing right now, but also proud of the kids for dreaming big,” he said. “You can’t achieve anything great unless you put 100% of yourself into it.”