Halton Arena — First Men's Volleyball Club Match on Campus

This was something I had been thinking about since my freshman year. The idea of hosting a club volleyball match in Halton Arena — UNC Charlotte's main arena — always felt just out of reach for a student club. But by senior year I had built enough relationships on campus to actually try to make it happen.

Getting the green light required working with two people: Terrece Draper, the UREC coordinator, and Jacob Rogers, the Halton Arena coordinator. Both had to sign off on the event, and that meant making sure everything we were asking for was realistic and within the scope of what a student organization could pull off in the space.

Once it was approved, I had 9 days to put it together. That's not a lot of time. The logistics came together quickly, but the biggest thing on my mind leading up to it was compliance. Halton has rules, and using it as a student club meant we had to arrive on time, keep spectators in the designated areas, and run the event cleanly from start to finish. One thing going wrong could have made the whole thing much harder to do again in the future.

On the day of the event we had 175+ people come through — players, spectators, and students who wandered in to see what was going on. We played App State and took it all the way to a 5th set, which we won in overtime. That was a nice bonus on top of everything else.

At the end of the night, honestly I was just glad it all came together. Four years of being in the club, building relationships with the right people on campus, and learning how everything works — it all led to that one event. It was a good way to finish out senior year.