For the past 22 years, Purdue senior women's volleyball manager Kyle Shondell, nephew of Ball State coach Steven Shondell, has heard the sounds of volleyballs drilled down the left and right sides of the court and dad calling timeouts to regroup his team.
With only a few months left until graduation, Shondell will have to decide if he wants to continue being involved with volleyball.
For Shondell, he said there is no question what he wants to do in his career.
"I'm about as certain as I've been on my career path right now that I want to coach volleyball," he said. "I highly doubt if I didn't have heavy coaching influence in my family with volleyball that I would be on that path."
Shondell said he didn't know a whole lot about the coaching aspect of volleyball his freshman year of college, but once he began to study it more and more, he knew coaching was the path he wanted to take.
"I've always been in volleyball from age zero," he said. "Once I really started getting into volleyball, whether it was coaching wise or training wise, I realized this is what I want to do. It's a fun thing, you have to be good at it, and I got the resources."
Shondell's family resource besides his uncle includes Purdue coach and father Dave Shondell and uncle John Shondell, a Purdue assistant coach. He said the enjoyment they get out of coaching is the main reason why he wants to be a coach.
"It's something I know I can enjoy because my entire life, all I saw was my family loving their job, loving their life and being able to be with their families," he said.
His father said he wasn't sure in the beginning if his son had the tools to be a coach.
"I would say early on, I didn't know if he had the makeup for being a coach as I watched him operate in his earlier days," Dave Shondell said. "But I think during the time that he's spent as a manager for our volleyball team, with the time he's spent with the local club and other good volleyball culture, he's really turning into somebody who I think could be a really good coach at different levels."
Shondell also said he's not sure what career path his son will take in the future.
"He's changed majors about three times since he's been at Purdue," he said. "So he keeps us guessing on what his future is."
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