Jordyn Poulter

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm timany Oshinsky, and this is Serving Pancakes NOE. Not a podcast about food. This is a podcast about volleyball and more to you. A pancake is a fluffy, syrup drenched breakfast food, but in volleyball, a pancake is a high effort move when a player flattens her hand against the ground to keep the ball in play. And that's us digging into high efforts that are moving sports forward. Listen in as I talk with people making the biggest impacts on global volleyball and women's sports perspectives, insights, and behind the scenes stories, all with the side of pancakes. Today's episode features the best setter at the Tokyo Olympics, Jordan Poulter. Raised in Aurora, Colorado, Jordan was a two time All American at Illinois, where she led the team to a final four appearance. Jordan has been part of the US women's national team since twenty eighteen and was the youngest member when they won their first ever Olympic gold medal in Tokyo, and she'll be back defending her title this summer in Paris. Hi, Jordanskay have some pancakes. We have to start what's the Jordan Poulter special?

00:01:18
Speaker 2: Where are the bananas and the walnuts?

00:01:21
Speaker 3: You know, that's a great question. I didn't get any think I'm not picky.

00:01:25
Speaker 1: That's what we love about. Yeah, yes, So I want to start way back when before you ever.

00:01:30
Speaker 3: Played volleyball, what did you want to be when your crew?

00:01:32
Speaker 2: I feel like every kid changes, you know, like each week they want to be something different. I remember at one time I wanted to be a vet tam. Yeah. The idea of being with dogs and animals seemed really fun, and I think that dream was surpassed by I don't know. At one point, I just wanted to be someone who just traveled the world. So I don't know what that would have entailed. Flood didn't. Maybe there was always, I think, for me, a dream of wanting to be in the Olympics. You know, when you would draw a photo of what you want to be. I remember when I was young, drawing a picture at the Olympics and then being like old official like that might not be yah, teachers saying yeah, I remember. I remember being like, I don't know if that's really.

00:02:20
Speaker 3: A tagable, but dream big Jordan, but not that big.

00:02:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, that you didn't listen to that teaching.

00:02:25
Speaker 2: It's interesting right to think about what you hope to aspire and then kind of get away from. Like for me, I don't know that I was ever constantly throughout volleyball thinking I want to be an Olympian. But I think at a young age had to have been the four Olympics, remembering watching it on TV and it's sticking. Not necessarily wanting to be a volleyball player, but just having that American flag on your jersey and representing something bigger than yourself at the highest level seemed really cool.

00:02:52
Speaker 3: So when did you get introduced to volleyball?

00:02:54
Speaker 2: My dad actually coached high school volleyball team. Well, I was growing up. My sister and I grew up running around in a gym and form of babysitting. Yeah, just well they were practicing. We kept ourselves busy running around and playing with different volleyballs or watching. So I think I started playing organized volleyball maybe when I was in third grade and.

00:03:14
Speaker 3: Your dad coached. He coached to you.

00:03:17
Speaker 2: Eventually he did coach me eventually.

00:03:19
Speaker 3: What was that like some stressful car rides?

00:03:23
Speaker 2: No, I I think that we both agree looking back that if it had been at any other time past the age that I was thin. He coached me when I was twelve for a couple of years, and then coached me when I was fourteen per year, and I think if we had gone beyond fourteen years old, it would have been Nah, it would have been some some kas in the house. Does he still coach? He does, on and off. He just finished coaching a club season for a Beleague fourteen see it all right?

00:03:53
Speaker 4: Up?

00:03:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when did you know that volleyball wasn't going to be your sport?

00:03:57
Speaker 3: What was it that clicked?

00:03:59
Speaker 5: You know?

00:03:59
Speaker 2: I feel like a part of it had to have been that I grew up around it and just saw it. And I think being always in a gym with older girls that I could look up to and aspire to try and get to where they were kind of was the thing in front of me. But I love anything that involves a ball, So my sister and I would play every sport imaginable in our backyard and try everything and had a lot of fun with it. But I think because volleyball was so accessible to me was what stuck. But I always say that if I had had the chance to play basketball, I think I would have liked the physical interaction with the other team, like you don't get much of that in volleyball.

00:04:37
Speaker 1: No, It's funny because a lot of your teammates who did play basketball preferred not to do the physical anymore, which is why they enjoyed playing volleyball.

00:04:45
Speaker 3: When did you know, though, that you were going to be not just good but good.

00:04:49
Speaker 2: I had the fortune of playing up a lot, so I was always one of the younger ones on the team, playing with older girls who were either one or two years older than me, And so I feel like you learn pretty quickly. You're humbled quickly, and you learn faster honestly when you're in an environment that forces you to be better or you know you won't thrive or you won't make it. So I think probably sometime early in high school as a freshman came in and made varsity, like a lot of my teammates, and you kind of go, well, this might be something that I could run with or take, and I think I speak for a lot of us, when you just constantly tried to get to that next thing. So, you know, freshman making varsity, then it's like you're in high school and you're trying to see if you can get a scholarship somewhere to play in college, and that what's next, what's next, What's next? And so we have such a large pool of athletes in this country with our college system for volleyball, and I know our national team staff watches a lot and wants to make our program the best it can and bring in the best talent they think might be suitable for the future. And so when cors calls, you know, you answer and you you come.

00:05:59
Speaker 3: They look good. Yes, exactly.

00:06:01
Speaker 2: So it was fortunate to get the opportunity to get my foot in the door, and I'm lucky to still be here.

00:06:05
Speaker 1: We're born in Illinois. It was Yeah, when did you move to Colorado?

00:06:09
Speaker 2: My parents moved out to Colorado when I was two, I think, so I'm high. Yeah, so all of our families back in the Midwest, but I grew up in Denver.

00:06:22
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, I wanted to give you a quick fact about volleyball in Colorado to set the scene. The Midwest is a hot spot for girls and women's volleyball. That's why places like Nebraska and Wisconsin are almost always in the conversation when you talk about the best players, clubs and schools for the sport. But Colorado is gaining momentum and has amazing athletes thanks to players like Jordan and her USA teammate Haley Washington, who's from Colorado Springs. When Jordan was a senior, her club team front Range eighteen Black was ranked eleventh in the nation and going back to Team US, Jordan and Haley made up a sixth of the gold medal winners in Tokyo and both will be heading back to Paris. The Rocky Mountain region doesn't look so i rocky to me. Now back to the interview.

00:07:13
Speaker 3: Beautiful Tenver. So what drew you to Illinois for college?

00:07:17
Speaker 2: I think a mix of who that coach was at the time, Kevin Hanley, who is now the head coach at Stanford and in combination with the team at that time made the championship against UCLA. I think it was twenty eleven. So it was just a lot of right things at the right time in that regard, and having had grandparents from central Illinois, my mom's from Central Illinois. You know, both my parents growing up were Illinois fans. A lot of yelling at the TV during basketball games, so it just seemed like a great foot for me, and I loved my time at University of Illinois and wouldn't trade it for anything.

00:07:53
Speaker 1: You were the top three recruit in the nation, the top setter when you graduated high school. But how did you decide on becoming a setter.

00:08:04
Speaker 2: I've got to say that it was one of those things that wasn't my choice to start. You know, I was one of the smaller ones when I had first started playing volleyball, so I was eight years old playing with twelve year olds, so it was four years younger, and it was kind of like, oh, well, you're definitely not big enough to be one of our hitters, and we need somebody else to say because we've got our libro set. So it just, you know, by lucky, the draw was kind of what I was led into, and fortunately enough for me my personality and my want for control, it fits well when being a setter. No, I'm just giving.

00:08:39
Speaker 1: Apparently makes for the best setter in the country, I suppose, so it helped. So being that highly touted going into college, did you find yourself humbled a bit or did you fit in immediately? What was kind of your transition from high school club to college.

00:09:10
Speaker 2: I went to Illinois and earned the starting spot, and the current center at the time was a senior. So was a freshman coming in and taking a senior's position, and that had a learning curve to it for sure, and kind of had some ups and downs through the season. Was benched for a brief period of time, and then re earned my spot and we finished out my freshman year going to the Sweet sixteen. But every level there's a jump in physicality, there's a jump in IQ and I think for me, trying to get to know women who have played together for a long time in the short amount of time, had to figure out how to ford relationships quickly, you know, similarly to when you come to the national team and those girls who've been playing together for ten plus years and you come in Brennan bushytail just you know, have to have to form these relationships and build trust and equity as authentically and quickly as you can.

00:10:07
Speaker 1: Mentally, when you're going through that initial phase freshman year, bench not bench starting, taking over senior's position, how did you mentally prepare yourself and get through that.

00:10:17
Speaker 2: I don't know that there was anything that could have prepared me. I think It's one of those life lessons until you're in it, you know. The only way I was through because I wasn't, you know, necessarily satisfied with what was happening in the gym. I kind of self taught piano in my dorm room. Oh wow, yeah, our dorm. Our dorm had piano rooms, and so I was like, you know what, this sounds kind of fun. We could rent the rooms for an hour for free, and so I just take an hour almost every night and sit and try to equivalate, you know, the chords that you learn on guitar and figure out the ham positionings on piano and sort of that's kind of how I self taught.

00:10:57
Speaker 1: Okay, can we take a second to just commend Jordan for teaching herself piano, because wow, that takes a lot of patience and dedication and just amazing. But I also want to point out that playing an instrument could help you become a better athlete.

00:11:16
Speaker 3: I mean, think about it.

00:11:17
Speaker 1: Both playing a sport and instrument need coordination, collaboration, and self confidence, and both skills can help each other. When you're stressed or anxious about your athletic performance, you can relax by playing an instrument like music therapy or if you're frustrated after trying to learn Hotel, California after the nth hour, you can take that frustration out on the court. But the biggest issue is time management. When can you find the time to practice an instrument while still training and performing at a high level. Well, Jordan was able to find that while competing at a high level in volleyball. And if Jordan can do it, so can you. Are you a chord player or can you read the notes?

00:11:58
Speaker 2: I can't read music, but I and tabs and chords.

00:12:02
Speaker 1: See, that's actually the fun way because that's like piano bar playing, and you can play anything.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: That's the more social way, right, And that's what I use it for as like a fun hobby social you know.

00:12:13
Speaker 1: So did you find that cathartic or was it just sort of a distraction?

00:12:18
Speaker 2: I think both. Actually cathartic in the sense of I was doing something that was enjoyable and challenging and I was getting better and learning, and yeah, it was a good way to detach and it was something that I could do solely by myself and control the pace at which I tried to attack it. There was just a lot of fun, creative freedom in it that I don't think that I could have found anywhere else.

00:12:41
Speaker 1: And you were a film major at Illinois, it was how did that work?

00:12:45
Speaker 3: So as I ended up becoming a film major.

00:12:47
Speaker 2: I think, like a lot of people who here, when you're a film major or media in cinema studies, it's like, oh.

00:12:55
Speaker 3: Nice, so you're going to work at a restaurant.

00:12:58
Speaker 2: But you know, being in the fortunate position of getting a full Red scholarship, I wanted to do something that I enjoyed. I wanted to be in classes that I wanted to go to and I and.

00:13:10
Speaker 3: That's what college is kind of I think so too.

00:13:13
Speaker 2: But I did start out in the business school, and after you can one O two.

00:13:17
Speaker 5: I.

00:13:18
Speaker 2: Tailed it out of there.

00:13:20
Speaker 3: The opportunities are endless when it comes to that.

00:13:23
Speaker 1: You said this before, but senior year, the US women's national team game calling and brought you on board. And so what was it like playing with these women who now their life is just volleyball and professional sports? Did you learn a lot about the next phase in this world if you wanted to go pro again?

00:13:44
Speaker 2: It's such an interesting jump for US Americans to go from college to professionally, which you know, up until this year you had to go abroad to play and make a decent amount of money. And so for me, coming out of college, I fell I had the perfect balance of school, social and sport. Then you leave all that and it's all volleyball, and it's all just Yeah, you're having to figure out how you find that balance in other aspects. And for me that was pretty challenging, or a pretty rude awakening, I would say, But kind of like I touched on earlier, I think in life you have to go through some hard things to grow as a human and be better moving forward. As hard as that experience was for me, I think I'm better for it, I guess now in hindsight. But if young girls don't have to leave America to experience high level volleyball, that's one of the reasons that I think a lot of us feel so compelled to to be a part of League One, you know, is to provide that choice and have the option because we never had the option before.

00:14:48
Speaker 1: Did the girls give you advice since you were still in college, did they give you advice on the next step in life?

00:14:54
Speaker 2: I think as much as they could. People are very forthcoming with their experiences and things that they've learned. But I think the essence of it all is really finding yourself. And the more the more that you become comfortable with yourself, the easier, and that everything else becomes both inside and outside the gym. You know, when you make that jump from college to pro there's a lot of imposter syndrome or just feeling like what am I doing here? And the growth curve is pretty big. But controlling what you can and being open to learning and growing and keeping yourself curious, I think would be my advice if I could go back and tell my former giving.

00:15:31
Speaker 1: Yourself when did you know, yes, I'm definitely going to be playing professionally, that this is something that I want to continue doing and pursuing.

00:15:38
Speaker 2: Probably my junior and senior year of college was one in those conversations with both my coaches at Illinois at the time and with national team staff were happening.

00:15:49
Speaker 3: Did you know where you wanted to go?

00:15:50
Speaker 2: So I graduated in December of twenty eighteen, so I graduated a semester early from my graduating class, and that's the middle of the overseas season. So I was not picky. I was very lucky that a team who was doing very poorly in Seri one of the Italian League wanted to make a change to try to save themselves from a relegation, and they took a chance on a young center out of college. So I then spent the next four years after that playing in the Italian League, and it was a really great place to learn and to get better and to meet friends and people from all walks of life and countries that I never would have had I not gone. I don't know, it's weird for all of us now. I think kind of being on the other side of our overseas life, you know, kind of mourn it in a way because for as hard as it was, there were so many beautiful things in friendships and memories that come out of it. It's a bittersweet thing, but I'm really excited for the picture.

00:16:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. So let's talk about Tokyo for a second. Because you were the onest player on the team during that run. You get named.

00:16:58
Speaker 1: Best senter in the Tokyo Olympics, which, like that must have been so cool. You win gold, but you're twenty four at the time.

00:17:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I turned twenty four during the Olympics.

00:17:09
Speaker 1: So you're twenty three turning twenty four during the Olympics. What was going through your mind when it came to I just went gold. I'm twenty four years old. What do I do now? What's the next goal?

00:17:23
Speaker 2: Exactly right. I don't know if dreams are dreams are dreams because they're this like huge attainable thing that you hope to one day you know, achieved or accomplish. But yeah, I don't know. Not you just don't think it happens that that early, or I feel really fortunate that it happened at all, because a lot of people don't get to achieve their dreams. But there was there was a period afterward of like, oh, well, okay, no, yeah, no, what I mean, you try to do it again? Right? But I think for me, being alongside of the eleven other women that I got to be teammates with in the took Olympics, I think all of us wished that for as high a moment that that was winning gold, that our friends and family could have been there to experience that with us, or celebrate and relish in that alongside us. And so for me, the new dream became to be able to be wearing my country on my chest and to be competing on the biggest stage in the world and have my mom, dad, and sister in the stands in that experience with me. So that's a good dream. That's the new dream.

00:18:32
Speaker 1: So I know you've talked about this a lot in interviews, but there's probably people listening to this.

00:18:38
Speaker 3: I don't know the story, so I know you know exactly what I'm about to ask you.

00:18:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, in twenty twenty two, your car got broken into and your gold medal was stolen. Listening to the interviews that you've done, you know what you just did. Now you're laughing. You know you got it back, which is I did miracle.

00:19:00
Speaker 2: It is a miracle.

00:19:02
Speaker 3: But I had to ask.

00:19:03
Speaker 1: When it first happened, what actually was going through your mind, because I don't think you were laughing.

00:19:09
Speaker 2: No, well, no, no, but I wasn't crying either. It was more like a God, you're so stupid. You're so stupid.

00:19:17
Speaker 5: You know.

00:19:17
Speaker 2: It was more of a disappointment in myself for a couple of reasons. How could you forget that you put it in your car?

00:19:24
Speaker 3: I would have forgotten too. If it makes you feel better.

00:19:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I you know, I try to spin it and say, yeah, I'm just not so attached to it that I like think about it all the time. No, I think also just knowing where I was living at the time and having been just negligent and understanding, yeah, maybe let's not leave your garage open and leave your car unlocked, and you know, just things like that where it's like, oh, I should put a little more thought into into.

00:19:54
Speaker 3: This very good life lesson.

00:19:56
Speaker 2: It is a good life lesson. You know. One of my best friends, Beth, she always told me never to leave anything valuable in my car because smashing grabs, and clearly I didn't listen to her. I had made peace with the fact that I would probably never see it again, which to me, did not take away from the actual accomplishment itself. You know, as cool as the actual metal is to me, doesn't mitigate the magnitude of the accomplishments. And then, twist of fate. I got a call while we were in Canada playing. Actually I was on my trainer's massage table getting me some work done. I only have or something, and I got a call and was told that the metal had been recovered.

00:20:39
Speaker 3: All right, you're going to love this.

00:20:41
Speaker 1: Jordan is very casual about how her metal was recovered. But here's what actually went down. A woman was leaving her office through the back door one evening to walk her dogs when she spotted a fast food bag on the ground outside her door. She opened it up and was inside a gold Olympic medal. Yes, Jordan Poulter's gold Olympic medal. The woman called her husband, who owned a barber shop nearby, to tell him of her discovery, and he was like, it's probably fake, but bring it over. In another twist of fate, a friend of theirs who happens to be a cop, was coming in for a haircut, so they showed him the medal and he said it was real and it was stolen and that's how Jordan got her medal back. So glad that you have it back. Is it an essay spot now it is? You don't need to tell me where. I don't want anybody else to know where it is. But I'm glad that it's now an assaie spot. Yeah, but you still take it out every so often show.

00:21:43
Speaker 2: Oh, whoever wants to see it. I'm very happy to show anyone. Yeah, it's I think it's so cool when people want to wear it or hold it. I feel like part of the victory is getting to share it with any other person or American who feels the same and a weight of what goes behind when they one of those. So for sure.

00:22:12
Speaker 3: So there's a little bit of a low, a little bit of a high.

00:22:16
Speaker 1: But then in December there was another low for you that year when you were playing in Italy. I believe he used the word gnarly. You had to gnarly it was really injury. So can you explain what happened?

00:22:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was playing for my professional team Navara over in Italy and we were playing an away match and I went up for a tight pass and at the top of my jump, I thought the opposing little blocker kicked my knee and felt my knee like hyper extend backwards and was told that that was my ACL at the top of the jump, just oh fucking And then on the way down everything else kind of kind of gave. So yeah, did my ACL and sale PCL and meniscus, and then had some other stuff in there too. It was really difficult to get home from Italy to America with all that going on.

00:23:09
Speaker 1: I can imagine So what was it like though, suffering an injury like this obviously season end day, Yeah, and being away from your support system.

00:23:18
Speaker 2: I feel like the shock value of just trying to understand what the next thing that I have control over to do kind of kicked in for me, and it was like, Okay, the next thing that I can do is try to get a flight in the next couple of days and head home and get this checked out by our doctors with TBSA and see what's going on and get a second opinion and hopefully get on the path to surgery. So that was kind of where my mind went. It wasn't so much wishing that my parents were there with me or anything. My mom actually offered to come out of it. I'm just sitting around, You're gonna be no help to me, or like it's not waste, It's not worth your time to come all the way out here. I'll be home, I'll be fine. But I know how hard I think it was for them on the flip side, being so far and not being able to help too child.

00:24:05
Speaker 1: Then you're back in the States, you're rehabbing, you're trying to recover, but.

00:24:09
Speaker 3: All of your teammates are abroad. So what was that Like?

00:24:13
Speaker 2: It was lonely, to put it. To put it lonely, I feel like I had mentally prepped so much for what was ahead in terms of what I physically had to go through, the milestones that I had to hit, and like the plan was very clear in that regard. So for a long time, I was like, you know, people have been telling me that this is going to get mentally really difficult, and I for ten months was smooth sailing. You know, Yeah, I get, I get this is hard, but I haven't. I don't feel like I've endured anything mentally emotionally that has taken me out of like myself. Then, yeah, my teammates headed off to their overseas season and it was just me in our gym and Anaheim with Kara, r trainer, and Brandon, our strength coach and coach, and Tama one of our assistants, and it started to become just Groundhog's day, you know, just showing up. And there came a point where I was then able to start using my body again in more volleyball like movements on the court. And I think the reteaching of how to use your muscles and use your body in combination with just not having you know, any of my teammates who are also some of my best friends. You know, in that environment too, felt really isolating and lonely in my day to day, my Monday through Fridays. So I think it scratched at something that I had never experienced as an athlete before and kind of said earlier, until you're in something and the only way out is through, I don't think you realize the value it has until you're on the other side of it. And I do think that I want to have a new appreciation for just what this sport offers in terms of how lucky I am to get to do such daily collaboration with others and work to try and l and lift up those around me.

00:26:02
Speaker 5: You know.

00:26:02
Speaker 2: I think, especially being a setter, you rely so much on your teammates. You're the middleman. You rely on your passers and your attackers. Without without either of them, you're nothing. You're just really So there is a newfound, I think, appreciation, and not that I didn't have it before, but there's a new enlightened, I pick approach that I have after this experience.

00:26:24
Speaker 1: I saw on the Love website that your motto is low expectations, high hopes yolo.

00:26:34
Speaker 2: I don't remember putting the yellow in there, but I do like that. I like YO and I live once. I think expectations is yeah, the thief of pe of a lot of joy and a lot of potential happiness.

00:26:52
Speaker 3: What brings you joy?

00:26:53
Speaker 1: What off the court makes you happy and joyful and makes you smile.

00:26:58
Speaker 2: A lot of things. I think my friends and loved once for sure bring me a lot of joy. I would say my hobbies bring me good pure joy where there's no end goal. It's just a fun thing to pass some time. And I think hobbies are cool because you're constantly approving and getting better. And hobbies like what I've played the guitar a little bit and piano at the piano a bit, and I enjoy longboarding are my main ones. But I think I'd like to dip my toe into DJing. Oh, it would be a fun hobby. I feel like it's really really dumb to say nowadays, I feel like every millennial or sillennial wants to wants to start DJing. But I think it could be a fun, really fun thing to learn when you're only planning on doing it for friends or small gatherings, be fun.

00:27:51
Speaker 3: Was your music your guitar, piano? Was your family musical?

00:27:54
Speaker 2: My dad was a drummer and a band in college, and he I think is heavily influential in my musical taste and just my exposure to different kinds of music.

00:28:06
Speaker 1: Well, going back to volleyball, you're still so young. They have plenty of years to play. But thinking about when it is going to be all said and done in twenty years, what do you hope your legacy will be.

00:28:20
Speaker 2: I hope that my legacy alongside honestly, not not just me personally, but the other women who have chosen to be a part of this leak. I hope that our legacy is that we created the path for the opportunity to the next major professional sports league in America.

00:28:42
Speaker 3: Where do you hope to see volleyball in five to ten years from now?

00:28:44
Speaker 2: I hope to see volleyball on my TV at least three times a week. I love it. I hope to be able to turn my TV on to any major network and be able to see volleyball. I love it.

00:28:57
Speaker 1: Well, Jordan, thank you so much. And now I have to say pancakes. So I was wondering if you could do something for me, and that's uh, play a little guitar for me.

00:29:06
Speaker 3: So we got we got one.

00:29:07
Speaker 2: Hey, I'll play guitar whenly have you sing? Oh?

00:29:10
Speaker 3: I will sing. Let's do it. I'm gonna bring it up. Do you like to sing?

00:29:15
Speaker 5: No?

00:29:15
Speaker 2: But you just singing your brittany voice.

00:29:17
Speaker 3: Do you want me to I? Yeah, I can try.

00:29:21
Speaker 5: This is a story about a girl you mean, lucky her limn.

00:29:36
Speaker 6: She wakes up and a knock, knock, knock on the door. It's time to make up, perfect smile and it's you. They're all waiting.

00:29:51
Speaker 2: For they there.

00:29:56
Speaker 4: She love please this allie, well go and they say she's so lucky, she's a star.

00:30:09
Speaker 6: But she cry cry, cries in her.

00:30:12
Speaker 4: Lonely hot thinking if there's nothing missing in my life, then why do FEISTI comingn.

00:30:27
Speaker 1: Ha ha.

00:30:30
Speaker 3: That was amazing.

00:30:33
Speaker 2: It's awesome.

00:30:36
Speaker 3: Oh cheers, Joan. That was amazing.

00:30:37
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you so much for coming, for playing, for having some pancakes, and you're for having me. Serving Pancakes is an iHeart women's sports production. You can find Serving Pancakes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm your host Tiffany Oshinski. Anya Olivarez is our senior producer. Our executive producers are Carrie Stett, Tamaradikey, and Lindsay Hoffman. Our marketing lead is Jawara Parker. Our theme music is Pancakes by Eric W. Mast Junior special thanks to Jordan Poulter. We'll be back next week with Annie Drews, a lefty opposite hitter who also helped Team USA when their first gold at the Tokyo Olympics, and who will be back this summer in Paris. Stay tuned for what we serve up next.