It's not everyday that the trip of a lifetime comes along, so when Alabama State University head volleyball coach
Penny Lucas-White was asked to share her knowledge on an international stage she didn't hesitate for a second.
Lucas-White and her staff will take their passion for the game to Chengdu, China on May 25.
"SportsUnited is putting on this trip and these clinics so they contacted Kathy DeBoer, the Executive Director of the American Volleyball Coaches Association for her input and help with the project," Lucas-White said. "Kathy emailed and called asking if I'd be interested, and of course I jumped at the chance."
Traveling to China to work with youth from low-income families, Lucas-White said the goal is to show the future volleyball stars the positive impact of sports and how well sports helps and motivates kids.
According to Lucas-White after she, along with assistants, Valerie Armstrong and Michelle Osunbor, make the over 30-hour flight they will have exactly 24 hours to recover from any jet lag before getting down to business.
“I am so fine with having a little time to get settled in,” Lucas-White said. “I tell everybody I can sleep on the plane. Let's do this.”
The trio, with the help of an interpreter and local coaches, will oversee two camps per day for kids ages middle to high school.
“They will have coaches and teachers that we will include in different activities along with the children. It will be a learning process for the kids as well as their coaches/teachers,” Lucas-White said. “There will be a question and answer session following each session. Our interpreter will play a key role in all of this through translation because there will be a lot of clinics in a lot of different cities. This is going to be a lot of fun.”
Lucas-White said when she was originally told she could only take on of her assistant coaches on the trip to assist with clinics she immediately began making phone calls.
“I called Raymond Harney of the USA's SportsUnited Program; he's heading all of this,” she said. “I politely asked if it were possible for both my coaches to make this trip and he told me he could make that happen. That was the icing on the proverbial cake.”
No stranger to overseas competition, following her collegiate career at LSU (1980-83) Penny-Lucas began her professional career domestically with the United State Volleyball League before joining leagues in Italy and Germany. She earned the honor of playing on the United States National Volleyball Team during the 1985 NORCECA (North, Central America and Caribbean) Games where she competed against some of the best players in the world.
A mother of three teenagers, Penny-Lucas completed her second season at the helm of the Hornets program this past fall. The group finished the season with their second consecutive third place Southwestern Athletic Conference finish.
“My first year here we only had eight kids to work with and I was very pleased with the way they embraced our philosophy and vision for the program,” she said. “There were five seniors on that team and the tallest player was not over 5-9. In spite of our height, or lack thereof, we still finished third.
“After the season, we went out and did a lot of recruiting and were able to bring in some really talented young players. We still finished third but we went five sets with the eventual champions, Jackson State and four with Alabama A&M. It says a lot about how far my young team has come. We were much taller but we didn't have as much game experience. We have a very hungry, coachable team.”
