The Bisons men’s volleyball left side and team captain, Spencer Grahame, praised the Bisons volleyball program as a spectacular and rewarding experience that has significantly contributed to his development.
Grahame was selected for the Canadian National Youth team and shared that he enjoys the unique balance of playing volleyball while studying engineering.
The Manitoban: How is the season going so far?
Grahame: The season’s going well. I’m really enjoying playing with the team. It’s my fourth year on the team now and the guys that I play with are my best friends and the environment that we have is really good. Right now, we’re at a 500 record. So, the same amount of losses as wins. I always hold our team to a higher standard than we are right now, and I wish we won a couple more games, but we’re here now and we’re in the playoff race. So, yeah, it’s all good.
M: You indicated that this is your fourth year or you have spent four years with the team. How would you describe that experience?
G: It’s been great. The Bisons sports program and everything that Gene, our athletic director, has laid out for us is really spectacular and it’s experience that I love and it’s really changed me as a person and really helped me develop who I am. I wouldn’t regret it for a second. It’s a great experience.
M: Before the end or close to the end of 2024, you excelled in one of your games. You did a lot for the team. You did well for the team. How do you feel coming up with those numbers and those performances for the Bisons?
G: I think that opportunity was good. I think my teammates really put me in good situations and I think our game plan was really focused on those. Our left sides needed to kill the ball and I was happy to produce for the team and like I said, Alex was our setter for that game and he really put us in good situations and I always felt supported. And when I wasn’t killing the ball, my team was covering me and I definitely did a good job, but everyone else was there to help that performance.
M: I’m looking at you being a student-athlete. You are learning and at the same time, you have to go for training and you have to prepare for game days. How are you able to combine that?
G: It’s a challenge for sure. The volleyball schedule that we have is very competitive and very challenging physically and mentally and time constraint wise and then engineering has the nature of being kind of the same way. Not physically demanding, but very mentally and time constraint demanding on lots of labs and everything, but I truly love doing both. And every single day I wake up and I know exactly where I’m going in life and maybe it changes day-to-day, but I know I love going to study engineering and I love going to play volleyball with all my best friends and when I have that opportunity every day to do those two things that I love, I make it work and I just do it. Sometimes I have to sacrifice other aspects of my life including maybe seeing old friends or seeing family as much which is sad for me, but I really know that these two things are very special to me and everyone else that is in my life understands that.
M: Talking about some of the sacrifices that sometimes you need to make, I’m interested to know what motivates you to play volleyball?
G: What motivates me is like I said before, every single day I know where I’m going like when I play volleyball. I know that it’s a very challenging situation for me and I get to work on something every single day that is a very unique experience. You know being the captain on the team I really get to refine my leadership skills in a unique way that you don’t get from a course. You can’t learn that. A professor can’t teach you that. So, these are skills that maybe aren’t traditional, but I’m gaining them in a kind of a unique way. So that’s something that I love to do.
M: I read you are part of the Canadian team as well.
G: Yes. So two years ago, I played on the U21 national team. We traveled to Bahrain in the Middle East to play at the U21 Worlds. That whole summer I was in Ottawa practicing with the national team and kind of doing that experience, so that was really cool. I played with all the best guys at my age group in Canada.
M: That was a profound experience. Do you intend to take volleyball to the highest level?
G: I take it day by day. I know that at some point I won’t be able to do volleyball and engineering at the same time. They don’t really complement each other past this school, but I think maybe looking at doing a year of pro and seeing how it is. But then also I want to make sure that my engineering career is intact, and I can still go and be a contributing member that way. In the next couple years of those are decisions that I’m going to have to make, but I’m not totally locked in either way.
