Joey Payeur
With her volleyball career arrow pointing up, Adyson Wilson-Hands has headed out.
The Fort Frances native will spend her Grade 11 year in southern Ontario to get the chance to sharpen her spike talents on two fronts.
Wilson-Hands will be training daily at Volleyball Canada’s full-time beach volleyball training centre in Toronto while also playing indoors for the Mountain Volleyball Club in Burlington.
The chance to attend the training centre stemmed from her recent appearance, along with teammate Emily Heil from Dryden, at the USA Junior Beach Championships in Hermosa Beach, Calif. earlier this summer.
“During my international tourney in California, my coach, Angie Shen, asked to talk to me after one of our games,” Wilson-Hands recalled.
“I thought she was going to talk to me about some stuff that happened during the game, but she told me that she sees a lot of potential in me and knows that if I give this sport everything I have, I could go somewhere,” added the now former Muskie volleyball, basketball, and soccer player.
“She then invited me to come to train at the full-time training centre.”
Wilson-Hands would have agreed to the plan on the spot–except for one problem.
“I, of course, had to talk to my mom right away to give her a heads-up that Angie would be calling her,” she said, referring to Fort Frances Fire head coach Amy Wilson-Hands.
“She was at the Canada [Summer] Games at the time, but they connected and plans for me to transfer got underway right away,” she added.
“I am nervous but excited for the opportunity to be able to train under elite coaches and support staff.”
While she and Heil didn’t get the result they had hoped for in California, Wilson-Hands was grateful to have her eyes opened as to the difficulty of the challenge ahead.
“Being that it was Emily and I’s first actual international competition, we weren’t really sure what to expect,” she admitted.
“Hermosa Beach is the capital of beach volleyball, with athletes like [American three-time Olympic gold-medalist] Kerri Walsh Jennings starting her career there,” she noted.
“So the competition was tough, but it helped set my expectations high and showed me how hard I needed to work.”
Wilson-Hands is most excited about the prospect of training in the same place many Canadian Olympians do.
“It will not be uncommon to be training alongside [national team members] Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes while they are home from a competition,” the teen enthused.
“My short-term goal is to make the Junior Olympics in two years and my long-term goal is to continue to make my way up to the national team.”
Mountain club head coach Larissa Byckalo, who was part of the Team Ontario staff for the Canada Summer Games, had seen Wilson-Hands play at the High Performance Centre earlier this summer.
“She told me if I ever found myself in Burlington that she would love to have me play for her,” Wilson-Hands recalled.
“She played left-side at McMaster University and is a great passing coach, which I need.”
Meanwhile, the reality of leaving her hometown for this new adventure hadn’t fully registered with Wilson-Hands just yet.
“As I was getting ready to board the plane, I felt as though I was just hitting up summer camp again,” she chuckled.
“I don’t think it has sunk in yet that I’ll be gone away full-time.”
Wilson-Hands’ departure also will leave a sizable hole in the ranks of the Muskie senior girls’ court teams she was ready to join this year, as well as the soccer team, with which she would have entered her third year of action.
“Being a Muskie means many things,” she remarked. “Every one of my Muskie coaches helped give me the foundation that made me strive to work hard, be a team player, compete, and never give up.
“Gord McCabe taught me to be a leader,” she noted. “I was used quite a bit as an example during the basketball season and that made me want to be a good role model for my teammates.
“Bob Kowal and Duane Roen [volleyball] taught me that I’m not always going to win every game, but what I do with that game will help,” Wilson-Hands added.
“I look back on the games that I have lost and work in practice on the things that maybe didn’t go so well.
“Sara Roach, Jess Caul, and Chantal Jodoin [soccer] taught me to hustle, not give up on any ball, and to try new things, like goalie,” she lauded.
“The biggest lesson learned while being a Muskie was to wear the jersey with pride and to respect the team that I am playing for.”
