Senior Bei Hnei’s love for volleyball was at first sight at the Thailand vs. Japan women’s final game. Hnei remembers how he loved that volleyball involves everyone, and he knew he wanted to play it.

However, Hnei was never introduced to the sport. That all changed in his seventh grade gym class, where Hnei got his chance, and the passion for the game really set in.

“As soon as I touched the ball, I knew it was my sport,” Hnei said.

Unfortunately, this all came to a halt when he was involved in a violent car crash.

Hnei says that it was hard to remember anything because he was half asleep, but he was told that the car flipped, and he was thrown out.

He shattered two parts of his vertebrae bone, which doctors performed infusion surgery on, and his knee has never been the same since the accident, hurting from time to time when he puts a lot of weight on it.

The adjustment back to normal was long and difficult. After the accident, Hnei wasn’t moving for months, let alone actually playing.

Now nine months since the accident, Hnei continues to rebound from his accident while still keeping his passion for the sport he loves.

The first thing Hnei noticed after getting back into the sport was how rusty he was and his lack of fundamentals.

So Hnei did what he needed to do to be able to play the game that he loved: he went home and relearned all of the basics.

SHS head volleyball coach Ethan Coffman says that during the practices back from his injury, Hnei looked a little nervous but more excited than anything.

And it proved to show that his excitement won over his nervousness.

Coffman says that Hnei is doing so well that he sometimes forgets that he was even in the hospital in the first place.

“It doesn’t matter if he’s playing, if he’s watching, if he’s coaching younger players, he’s obsessed with the game of volleyball,” Coffman said.

Hnei’s plans for the future are different from a typical high school athlete. Rather than wanting to play in college, he finds joy in coaching younger kids.

Hnei believes this may lead him to managing a girls volleyball program or just playing recreational sports in college. But his end goal is to manage a professional volleyball team in his far future.

“(Volleyball has impacted) a lot in my life … because 90% of my friends are the people that I’ve made through volleyball,” Hnei said.