The frenzy of the fall is underway for UNI Panther Athletics.
All fall "The Fall Frenzy" podcast gives you an inside look at those competing in UNI fall sports including interviews from within Panther volleyball, soccer and more.
This week Fall Frenzy features Panther volleyball's Grace Mikota. You'll hear about her unexpected, unconventional, but somehow meant to be, journey to being a panther, what motivates this year's team and how she hopes her coach might describe her.
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traveling to see your fav sports team is cool but traveling with Amex Platinum for the big game is even better right this way with access to dedicated card member entrances at select events you can skip the line and with access to the centurion lounge you can catch the next game on the way home that's the powerful backing of american express terms apply learn more at american express dot com slash with amex card member entrance access not limited to amex platinum card the fall season starts in the stubborn heat and ends as it turns frigid in between a frenzy of games moments and stories this is the panther fall frenzy your source to stay in touch with panther fall sports i'm your host jw cox and this week on the fall frenzy panther volleyball is opening up their conference scheduled this weekend so we open up this season of fall frenzy with a volleyball chat with panther senior grace mccota you'll hear about her unexpected unconventional and somehow meant to be journey to being a panther what motivates this year's team and how she hopes her coach might describe her but first we open up with a little fun that's been had on social medias so far this year but you guys we're doing the miked up segment for uh for practice and you've had lily do that and uh lily do that wins your turn winner when are you gonna be on the mic i don't know when my turn is they haven't asked me yet but i would love to get on the mic what's so what is it that you would bring that that you would look forward to when you if and when you get that chance well i think i i think i bring some energy i think i could have some fun commentary on there but if i if i get the chance hopefully i can improve with that when you've watched lilies and and Olivia so far anything surprise you or was it kind of just what you figured those two would be up to if you put a mic on it's kind of what i figured especially with lily lily brings her own commentary so kind of what i think all right so in that vein though obviously some stuff stays behind the scenes because that's the joy of being with the team and and having that that kind of internal bond but what's something that that maybe people don't know or don't get to see that you would share about panther volleyball that that kind of gives the insight into what you guys are for sure i think a lot of people probably don't realize like just how much fun we have together and like how goofy and like for lack of better word weird we are like we um yeah we're kind of quirky and i think that actually makes for a great team it makes for super fun environment and you know that might be not be something people realize if they're just following along you know during games when we kind of have to be more serious um but yeah we definitely have a lot of fun together a lot of lot of joking around has that always kind of been a hallmark of the teams that you've been a part of here no matter the the different makeup as you've gone through now as a senior yeah i would say so maybe not as much of my freshman year but definitely in these past past um two years for sure just with you know you get the right combination of people together you've you've known each other for longer now than i'm a senior so yeah definitely more so in the past two years i'd say all right let's go to you and what you're doing with school where you at with uh with your school work as a senior now what was your major and then where are you sitting with that for sure so i have kind of a different major um it's called recreation tourism and nonprofit leadership so my emphasis is therapeutic recreation which is kind of working with um the disabled population or working in rehab units and doing similar stuff to occupational therapy but it's like the recreation side of it so not as much daily tasks and more recreating so i am in my final semester of classes and then in the spring i will go on an internship somewhere in the Cedar Valley not sure where yet and then i'll be graduating in may yeah that that's you called it that's different where did you get the idea for that where did that interest kind of spark well i came in as an exploratory major and so didn't really know what i was doing and then um kind of took i took a foundations class for therapeutic rec and i was like oh this sounds super interesting and it's actually kind of cool because it's what bobby did before she came to coach so she kind of told me a little bit more about it and i had thought about occupational therapy thought about kind of something in the medical field and always like kind of had a heart for working with people with disabilities so i kind of it kind of just fit and it kind of just explored that through my freshman year first first semester there obviously you'll get to it in the in the professional sense but have you had a chance while you've been in school to kind of work with you know the disabled population or anybody on in a different way just with sports or what opportunities you've had yeah i so when i'm home into moyne i work as a para sometimes i will go into the schools during their before when we're on christmas break but they're still in school so i'll work one-on-one with a kiddo who maybe need some extra help i this past summer i worked um for like a senior care living center so not necessarily like the disabled population but older older generation um who needs a little bit more help i've been in and out of a nursing home for um for a class project too so got in some experience and looking forward to getting more experience with that this spring too as you've done that and you've gone through your course work and those other things that you've done has has it allowed you to kind of discover anything about yourself and like how how you interact with people and things like that i think i've discovered that i definitely want to be in a profession where i am interacting with people you know not necessarily like a desk job and i really do just love making relationships with with anyone and you know i didn't know if i'd like working with an older population i wasn't quite sure but definitely through my experience this summer i have learned that you know that's an option for me too that i i just want to work with people in some capacity helping out however i can now is there an activity uh recreation activity that you've discovered that maybe is not accessible at this point or as accessible as it could be that maybe down the road you'd want to say hey i'd want to try to get that out to people is there an activity that you've come across it's kind of like that um not like one in particular i think there's some interesting ones out there like wheelchair basketball for example and like just with everything special olympics is doing so with this profession you can kind of work like clinical side in the hospital like rehab and they they do some really cool things with like art they have these apps or you can um like you don't have to click with your with your hand you can kind of like tape a pencil around if you don't have those fine motor skills so some super cool stuff like that and then i think special olympics does a lot of like really cool more community side therapeutic rec which would also be interesting to get into especially just because obviously i love athletics and being involved in that sense would be super cool too so definitely opportunities out there to explore all right let's go to the volleyball side for you let's go all the way back when did you first start playing volleyball yeah um let's see it's probably been i probably started like a community rec camp when i was like in second grade and then i remember fifth grade i started like club volleyball so taking it a little bit more serious in fifth grade and then yeah kind of just carried that through high school was there a moment in there whether it was between the rec league and the rec league when you started club that you really thought oh yeah this is i've fallen in love with volleyball i mean i remember in in fifth grade going into those club tryouts and just being absolutely terrified because you're so young and all these people are like bigger and older but i just remember having so much fun with the sport and i got pulled up to like the older team so i felt super cool and i was like wow this is awesome and then really just like kept kept enjoying it all the way through club season and i actually didn't play school volleyball in middle school i ran cross country instead and but then i decided in high school i'd rather play volleyball and i i had a blast in high school just playing school ball and kind of having fun with my friends and really just enjoying the sport you did end up still running doing track in high school were you doing distance was that what you did what did you do yeah yeah so i kind of did find the happy medium because couldn't do cross country um because i was same time as volleyball but yeah i ran 800s i ran 2s 4s and 8s in track so a little bit more of that mid distance um but i was still with like the cross country crew who did long distance track so i kind of got the best of both worlds there so obviously you did multiple sports and then you can see that the value in that but you love volleyball so give me the pitch for why volleyball kind of captured you and and why it can be a good thing if there's kids out there who are right on that end of the journey and why volleyball was the one for you and i think sports in general are just great i think you learn a lot um of life skills from sports but volleyball specifically for me i just genuinely think it's such a fun game there's always something going on there's always back and forth there's really never like a dull moment where maybe in some other sports there's kind of those rules but there really isn't that in volleyball and i think it's just a really intense high energy sport and that's kind of what drew me to it in the first place now let's go to your decision to come here what was the familiarity with you and i and what put it on your radar as a place to come play volleyball well my senior year of high school i was like trying to decide where i was going to go to college i was getting looks at like smaller schools and i actually came to you and i on strictly like an academic visit like they weren't looking at me at all i came here to just see if like i would like the feel of the bigger school and because both of my parents weren't here too so i kind of like grew up on you and i was like yeah they really go too so came on a visit my senior year and was like yeah this is where i want to go to school but i'm not good enough to play d1 so i'm gonna forget the whole like volleyball idea like i'm just gonna go enjoy my senior year so that's pretty much what i did i just went enjoyed my senior year totally planning i'm just coming here academic reasons and then um in gorado her mom had seen me play because i played with her sister and reached out to my mom and was basically like if grace has any desire to like play college volleyball then like tell her to reach out to kim and just see like you and i's kind of down in numbers they've got some injuries just stuff like that so i hadn't played volleyball for a year but i reached out to kim and she responds to me and basically is like come up for an open tryout is what they called it on their first day of preseason so i drove up to cedar falls came to an open tryout and as i'm on my way back kim calls me she's like hey can you come to our practice like come practice with us and i'm freaking out because like we grew up on you and i volleyball so like i know all these people and i'm like i haven't played volleyball for a year this is a whole different game and so i practice with them like their second practice and then we're rolling out and kim is like grace tomorrow practice you can use this roller and i'm thinking tomorrow practice like what do you mean tomorrow practice i'm coming back so i drive back to demoyne i pack my stuff up for the week and i come back and i'm sleeping on in this couch and i'm doing like the whole preseason with them like i'm going to every practice i'm going to all of the things they don't know what is going on they just know they want to keep seeing me at practice i don't know what's going on because i'm just i'm just along for the ride at this point and then eventually preseason ends and bobby sits me down and she's like okay so we've never done this before but if you want to spot on the team you can have it so i was kind of just like freaking out because this is like obviously the dream i mean playing playing for you and i at least for me was kind of kind of my personal dream and i i just didn't think it was possible and then yeah got opened up that door and i i just walked through it and and now i'm here and yeah kind of a crazy not typical recruitment story and there's a lot more that went into it but that was kind of the basics there's so much there but the thing that i'm drawn to is okay so you talked about your parents and going here and they obviously knew what your dreams were and how big this would be go to that conversation after you sit down with bobby and you've sorted out what was it like talking to them and telling them about what what did happen man it was it was crazy it was crazy first of all just to like sit down with bobby because my parents weren't here at the same time she played here and so like okay i grew up and they were just like huge bobby fans like they they would like my mom we'd see bobby at like club tournaments and she'd be crazy that's bobby that's bobby like i mean like she was like bobby and we would go to like the Drake game when they were into moyant we they'd take me to games up here like it was a big thing so me just sitting down across from bobby i was like my parents would be freaking out right now like i was like this is this is just crazy to me and so yeah then i i remember calling them on the way back because i had to come back to the moyant i wasn't planning on moving up to college for two more weeks like i my whole life was just completely flipped upside down but they were just like couldn't couldn't believe it they were so proud so excited um and yeah it was just really cool and then the cool thing was like i ended up getting number five which that number happened open up and that's the number i've had for like literally my entire life every club season every high school season i was always number five so it was kind of just another like thing of this is what was supposed to happen and this where i'm supposed to be yeah that's just incredible the the mitt to be nest of it all just is always striking if do you think back on that a lot like if other things happen now obviously it's been a long journey since then now that you're in your senior year has that continued for you and just kind of stay in the back of the mind is there are things that are meant to be yeah definitely i mean i thought it's not quite often fragmented sophomore year of just like wow i can't like just this like still shock of like i actually can't believe that this is happening like because i i mean it was totally not in the cards it was totally not what i thought my college experience would look like so that did get brought to mind a lot and you know now going into my senior year and like junior year definitely felt more like this is because at first i was kind of like i shouldn't be here like major imposter syndrome i was like they made a mistake they don't know what they're doing and then as you know kind of stepped into more of a leadership role and the team was definitely like yeah this is like i'm more comfortable with this this is what kind of what i'm supposed to be doing but it does still come to mind you know something will remind me of that and just like thinking back now kind of being nostalgic of like oh this is my last year and thinking back to how it all started is is fun and it's kind of a just kind of a cool thing you mentioned that leadership now obviously you know you're there you've had the experience the success how do you kind of view yourself as what your role is as one of the leaders on this team right i think just a big thing is like experience cannot be like underplayed like there really is so much that you learn um just how to function as a team how to like just do the whole student athlete thing there's a there's a lot that you learn starting from freshman year to now senior year and i think a big thing is we can kind of cultivate us as seniors like that team chemistry that we know needs to be there in order to be a successful team because it's not just about court performance obviously that's huge and we can lead in that way in the gym with our effort with our attitude with all of those controllable things but it's also like how are we cultivating like a team environment too outside of the gym because that's that's a huge role too and i think a lot of that does fall onto the seniors because we've seen that we we kind of know what it takes and now that's kind of our job to to cultivate a little bit more of that all right so this answer when you were coming in here probably was different and maybe simple and i think she's just the star and she's she's incredible how would you describe now that you've got to know her as a player coach peterson in a word or a phrase i mean she is like i i do not have enough good things to say like about bobby like there's not enough the heck it says she i just respect her as a coach like so much i mean her presence in the gym just makes a difference like she doesn't yell she's not a yeller but like you are just like hanging on everything she says and you just respect her so much but she also cares so deeply about each of us as people and you know a lot of people will have said that about bobby but it really is true like she's a second mom she she wants to know what's going on in your life she's got like a two-hour rule if something goes on if you're an accident if like you've got to mix up with something like bobby needs to know and she she genuinely cares and has 17 daughters one actual daughter on the team you know 16 other daughters that she really like deeply cares about as people for sure i now flip that on its head what do you think bobby what phrase or word do you think bobby would use to describe grace oh geez i don't know what bobby would use to that be that'd be an interesting question that i would love to know actually but um i would hope it'd be along the lines of energetic good vibes positive you know that's what i hope that it would be but i really i really don't know i'd be interested to ask for that i might have to i'll try to ask that to anyone of you that i talked to and we'll see if we get her her response later all right just some quicker ones about the team who's the the teammate that you think would take home the title as the funniest teammate oh funniest okay i feel like there could be a lot of different answers for that because i think there's a lot of us that are like funny in our own right and in our own way but um i i'd say Aaron and i laugh a lot together i think we have similar senses of humor and yeah when you get when you get us going it's it's a good time uh who's the teammate that kind of on the other side that ever could get everybody fired up so it's match time and like you said you guys are more serious and focused obviously when that happens who's the teammate that gets everybody ready to run through a wall uh i i kind of take on that responsibility a little bit i would hope you know i'm kind of the one that's like i always say kim kim is like our bra like let's go kind of coach and i kind of take that on as a teammate i don't talk as much technical stuff but i'm kind of the one who's like let's get fired up like let's get after it so i would kind of take that on um i would definitely say that was like kalissa to last year and but i think we all two like feed off of each other in that right but yeah i kind of have taken that role a little bit from kalissa i would say all right so take us to a game day what's one thing you definitely have to do before a match that sometime on the day of the match that you have to do mmm sometime on the day of the match i usually i don't have a super strict like have to do this have to do this have to do this because i don't want to get in my head of oh crap i didn't do that and now it's like gonna be a bad game so i try to like limit that but i usually do take an app i i'm a big napper and i'm like i i can usually get in my 10 to 20 minute nap and if that's what i get on game day then i'm usually ready to rock that's a good that's a good controllable because wherever you are you can find a way to nap that's good that every time it's not like crap i have to do all this list of things and now if i don't it's going to be a bad game so yeah that's usually just my one thing smart smart all right when you look back on all your volleyball playing days take coaches that you've played for out of it who's the person that's kind of had the biggest impact on you and your journey to this point mmm like player wise teammate wise it could be teammate it could be parent family whoever okay then i would probably say my dad he well i mean like obviously both my parents in both of my parents are green so supportive um they've seen it from you know second grade when i started to now final season of volleyball but he's kind of been the one who's always been able to like put it in perspective for me if i'm struggling if i'm in my head like he's usually the first one i'll call we actually did these things we called him bench talks where before every game we would sit on the bench outside and like he would kind of just give me the rundown kind of like calm me down but also fire me up at the same time and then he he knows what to say after the match so yeah definitely my dad i think he's gonna be pretty sad too when it's probably just as sad as me both my parents will be just as sad when all of it's over let's talk about this year's team you guys have a lot of matches under your belt against some big-time teams and some big-time spots you finally get to come home uh after we're talking here what motivates this year's team above anything else i think a big motivating factor for any team but specifically this one too is it's the it's having that conference tournament kind of we have that target on our back because that's you know two years now that we've won regular season we've won the tournament we we all we don't all but over a good majority of us know how it feels to walk out a regular season with a championship walk out of the tournament with a championship make it to the NCAA and that's you know that's the goal of any season and i think when you've got people who know that that's the goal they know that that's what it takes they know the feeling it really is a huge motivating factor you know in practice around those long days around those long trips it's like that's what we're working towards and yeah you kind of see that light at the end of the tunnel of yeah that's that's what we're going for and that's what we put in all this work for you talk about maybe this is hard to put into words but you're talking about knowing the feeling and obviously you guys have had a lot of success there there's been changes in the lineup and at various times various spots but you guys have found a way to continue to succeed what has been that through line that feeling that you guys have that there's commonality across all these teams even if there are minor changes within it i think with this team we have a lot of fight and i really like to see that and i think a lot of the teams i've been on have fight but i think specifically with this one we're just not giving up we're not going away i mean we put we definitely tested Louisville you know fourth in the nation and i think it's just like that attitude of just grit and scrap and fight no matter who's on the court we've got each other's backs no matter what the lineup is you know the goal is the same and it really is just we're united and that's we talk about you know other intangible things off the court and that's a big thing is staying united being where our feet are and just like fighting for each other and i think i see a lot of that in this team which is a really good thing all right last two kind of bigger picture looking at your career what is your biggest highlight on the court as a pantry so far when you think about it biggest highlight on the court i would say probably just being able to play in the NCAA tournament like last year even though we kind of came up on the losing side but just being able to actually be like on the court in a honest stage like that is it was just a super cool experience in NCAA tournament like i said before like that's the goal so just being able to actually go out there and play and kind of just leave it all out on a stage like that probably definitely one of those highlights that i would look back on and be like yeah that was awesome all right keep it with the team and your teammates throughout but off the floor what's what's a favorite memory of panther volleyball kind of away from the floor that she'd like to go to or think away from there's so there's so many and even like just these road trips like having a sprint through the chicago airport we almost missed our flight there's so many memories that come come out of the road trips but when i think back on will encompass all four years the foreign trip to Croatia was just awesome you know i don't know how you can top that and i think that trip put a huge role into our success the following season because just so much like bonding happens so much team chemistry is built there so that trip was really awesome all right and then the final thing i got for you when you think of and when you're here and obviously you were thinking of it even before when you were a kid and how you followed it but now when you leave to how are you gonna describe what panther volleyball on the whole means to people and what it is meant to be a part of now that history that has been put together well that's it's such a big question because panther volleyball is it's about tradition it's about legacy it's about you know teamwork it's about grit it's it really is just working for something that's so much bigger than yourself and kind of just finding finding that drive within yourself to work towards a common goal with with people day in and day out and just kind of going going to battle with them in it i've just learned i've learned so much being a panther like from bobby from kim from jason from just being a student athlete in general but i really just think panther volleyball is it's all about tradition it's about legacy it's about fighting for each other and it's yeah it's something that's super cool to be a part of and definitely very very blessed to have been a part of this program for sure thanks to grace macutta for joining me on the show panthers open the conference schedule with matches this week against southern Illinois and Missouri state for more panther contents on demand subscribe to the panther point of you wherever you get your podcasts your uni athletic source delivered right to you this has been the uni fall frenzy catch all of the frenzied fun of the fall this is the panther point of view from your field so you [BLANK_AUDIO]
