Photo by Andrew Brown ’18 – Connor Dunn ’18 practices his serve March 3. This is the second year that Dunn has made the transition from basketball to volleyball.
By Henry Erlandson ’16
THE ROUNDUP
After recently finishing up a long season playing for the JV basketball team, Conor Dunn ’18 is making a quick transition to playing volleyball in the spring.
A two-sport athlete, Dunn said the transition of going from basketball to volleyball is good and bad.
He said it is easy because he is still in shape, but hard because the sports are so different, although` adding that the blocking in both sports are very similar.
Last year was Dunn’s first year playing organized volleyball.
Volleyball has also been the most time consuming of the two sports for Dunn, but he said he likes that because he wants to play college volleyball.
Volleyball head coach Mr. Tony Oldani said he has had the benefit of watching the players compete throughout the fall and said that in December when the team traveled to Anaheim and a number of college coaches were asking about the 6’8 Dunn.
“I knew coming into tryouts that he was likely going to be not just on the team but a key part of the team,” Mr. Oldani said.
Dunn is one of four sophomores on the varsity team and has gravitated towards the position of setter.
“He’s in a unique position on our team right now where he is the only setter we have on the roster,” Mr. Oldani said. “As good as he is or as bad as he is, he’s going to have to play through the highs and the lows all season. So I think that will be good for him as a sophomore to learn from that experience.”
Several basketball players turn to playing volleyball after the season ends, and Mr. Oldani said many are athletic enough to figure out certain aspects of the game. But few are able to step into the quarterback position of the team mentally and physically like Dunn has been able to do.
“It was really evident from December into January watching him grow with the team playing California teams that I saw that he wasn’t so far behind his peers who were in the 16s and older,” Mr. Oldani said.
The main challenge that Mr. Oldani said would come from coaching Dunn would be finding a way for him to express his frustration in a constructive manner as a result of his stoic and introverted personality.
