By Ed Piper
There's often more to the story, whether it's a report in sports or one from general news. That was the case with Viking alumnus Madeleine Gates being named a Second Team All-American in volleyball at UCLA in her sophomore season.
Her father, Michael Gates, shared the fact that his daughter, a 6' 2 1/2" middle hitter-blocker, played a chunk of the season with a pulled abdominal muscle. He placed his right hand on the left side of his abdomen to demonstrate where the injury occurred.
Madeleine developed the injury because, in spiking the volleyball with considerable force, as she does, while she leaps high above the net, she is causing considerable strain in that area.
The pulled muscle was significant enough, according to the elder Gates, that the team staff restricted her practice time. She was being held out of practices during the week, then being inserted into the Bruins' lineup for matches.
And yet, missing lots of practice time, while nursing the injury, Madeleine Gates played effectively enough to be named All-Pac 12, All-Regional, as well as All-American Second Team in her first year starting at UCLA. Now, the awards themselves are quite a feat, even with full participation in team practices.
The younger Gates, according to her father, is taking an Applied Math major. This enables her to still be on track for preparation for engineering, without all her remaining courses being taken up by required courses toward an Engineering degree.
In a conversation about NCAA student-athletes' restrictions from receiving money, food, or anything else from sports boosters, Michael Gates said that Madeleine receives $300 to $400 a month as a stipend for her expenses outside of tuition and housing, which are part of her full athletic scholarship at UCLA. The stipend enables her to buy meals and pay for other living expenses that are not quite covered otherwise.
"Some conferences do it, and some don't," was his comment on the athletic stipend. The Pac 12 does it.
In August, before the school year begins in September, volleyball players are required to be on campus for preseason team practice. In that case, said Mr. Gates, the university provides for her housing, an expense which otherwise would fall to the family.
Michael Gates said that he and his wife, Amy, drive to Los Angeles from San Diego for each UCLA home volleyball match. "If you don't leave before 2 p.m., you pretty much will be sitting in traffic for four hours," he said of the grueling route from here north through traffic in North County, Orange County, then Greater Los Angeles.
Matches were sometimes scheduled Wednesday and Friday, or Thursday and Saturday, during the women's fall season.
Under NCAA regulations, there are restrictions on how much time the team can require an athlete on scholarship to devote to training, as well as travel, each week. There are technicalities on how many days are devoted to "travel" when the team goes to out-of-town matches. For example, when UCLA travels to Washington, and matches are on Thursday and Saturday, there isn't time between matches to return to Los Angeles. So the team stays at the away location over the three days, and Madeleine would be studying and completing assignments during her off time between matches and practice.
Dad, obviously extremely proud about his daughter's accomplishments on and off the volleyball court (she is a stellar student in the classroom), though not a boaster, said his daughter has grown quite a bit personally from the tall, shy girl who used to move about the La Jolla High campus. "She's much more outgoing now," he indicated.
A memory a sportswriter has of the former, reticent Madeleine Gates is of a time at a Viking football game when the sports facility was being renovated and football games were being held at Mission Bay High. After volleyball practice, Gates arrived at the game with a talkative teammate, Savannah Guy, who initiated the conversation. Gates chimed in--a little--but it was mostly the gregarious Guy who propelled the interchange.
The two girls were quite a sight: both measuring a long, lanky 6'2" or more. I think Madeleine even managed a smile, though even as a senior she still could be pretty shy with people she didn't know closely.
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