By A winning smile, a slight Southern drawl, a 6-feet tall, powerful stance.
Don’t let images fool you. Quincy Verdin might seem to be a cool customer, but she always means business on the court. The road to becoming a key player on Long Beach State’s women’s volleyball team wasn’t always smooth, but it sure was eventful.
FRESHMAN YEAR – Central Catholic High School
Volleyball wasn’t always Verdin’s area of expertise. When she started school in Morgan City, La., Verdin claimed basketball as her sport.
Fortunately, peer pressure struck just when tryouts began. With a lot of her friends on the volleyball team, she was “convinced” to try it out. Thus, her career began. Who says peer pressure is bad?
“My friends were on the team, and I really liked the coach, so I decided to play,” Verdin said. “But I wasn’t good at first. I was uncoordinated and my feet weren’t right.”
By the time her sophomore year started, Verdin started to fall in love with volleyball, but she knew she needed to improve her skills drastically. She joined a club team and started to play night and day.
“I started to get better when I started playing club,” she said.
JUNIOR YEAR
Central Catholic High School is a very small school, according to Verdin. It wasn’t known for winning many athletic championships.
However, things changed in 2003.
The volleyball team was on fire, claiming victory in nearly every game it played. The team rallied its way to the 2003 Louisiana state championship. With Verdin leading the team, she and her teammates came out of the tournament with a big title: first team all-state. And if winning all-state weren’t good enough, Verdin also took home the title of junior MVP of the entire tournament.
One could say Verdin had figured out her coordination and where to put her feet.
SENIOR YEAR AND LBSU
Verdin started to weigh her options about where she would attend college. With the deadline approaching, Verdin got the call of a lifetime.
“One of my greatest achievements I’ve had in my career is Brian [Gimmillaro] offering me a scholarship to play at Long Beach State,” Verdin said.
Following senior year, Verdin packed her bags and headed for Southern California.
Moving from Louisiana to California would be hard for anyone, but especially for an athlete who needs to adjust to a new environment while playing a competitive sport.
Verdin played 27 games during her freshman year, and became very aware that her weakness was defense and digging.
Driven by one purpose – to be better – she began to tunnel her vision on improving drastically.
Her work paid off. In her sophomore season, Verdin nearly tripled her playing time to 76 games. Her career-highs, however, have all come from the present season.
“My personal-high this season was when I got my first double-double against Pacific [on Oct. 12],” Verdin said with a huge grin that showed she was obviously proud of that game.
In the present, Verdin is still working hard on her defense. Fortunately, she has a peer on the team who is a great example of where she wants to be: 2006 Big West Player of the Year Alexis Crimes.
“She has established a path I know I can have, too,” Verdin said. “She’s a great leader, leading by aggressiveness.”
Although volleyball is the main focus for Verdin, she is also very focused on what she is going to do after her college career is over. A communications major, Verdin plans on continuing school after graduating to receive her teaching credential so she can teach and coach volleyball at a high school level.
Nonetheless, much is in store for Verdin and the women’s volleyball team with this season coming to an end. The 49ers are on a 7-match winning streak, and are 13-2 in the Big West, one game behind first place Cal Poly.
With Verdin and Crimes putting on an offensive show each match, the post-season should be quite entertaining. Stay tuned.
