Kenlee Shanks, a 16-year-old junior at Camp Verde High School, visited Milan, Italy, from July 8 to 16 as part of one of two U.S. volleyball teams fielded by the company America’s Team LLC, in partnership with the American Council for International Studies, to compete against Italian high school students.
“You should step out of your boundaries sometimes, and you’ll get to experience cool things like that,” Shanks said of the experience. “Because I’ve never been out of the country before or even flown by myself, and I’m really glad that I did … Because I got to go do that, I think on the court I’ll have more confidence in myself.”
Shanks said that her time in Italy was highly structured, requiring her to wake up to fit in sightseeing in the morning, followed by lunch, with her afternoons spent at the volleyball gym, where she would play three to four games, and finally dinner with the Italian team before returning to the hotel.
“We first were in Milan, and that’s where we played most of the volleyball, and we toured a little bit,” Shanks said. “Once the tournament was over, which was three days long, we took a train over to Rome, and then we toured the rest of the trip.” Both American teams ended up playing against each other in the finals, and Shanks’ team took second place.
Shanks said that playing against the Italian teams was an eye-opening experience for her, noting their differences in techniques such as passing. The Italians, she observed, used their hands and palms for passing, whereas she was accustomed from Camp Verde to seeing players use their forearms.
“It was interesting seeing how they play because a lot of their roles are different, their techniques are different, even their rotations,” Shanks said. “It gave me a lot more experience seeing the different ways you could do something on the court.”
Shanks has been playing club sports with Oak Creek Volleyball since sixth grade and joined the school team in the seventh grade. She recently made the switch to play outside after starting as a middle blocker.
“When she was 4 years old, she decided that she wanted to be a black belt in tae kwon do, and she persevered,” her mother Terra Shanks said. “She got her black belt when she was 11. She didn’t let anything stop her. It doesn’t matter what anybody says to her. If she has a goal that she has set, she’s going to do it. Doesn’t matter if there’s someone at school or a teacher or a coach that tells her it’s probably not a good idea or she’s probably never going to make it that far. She just does it anyway, she will prove you wrong.”
After earning her black belt, Shanks decided that she wanted to expand her athletic pursuits. “That’s when I started doing volleyball and basketball and track,” she said, and her repertoire now includes swimming as well.
“She came back a little bit more headstrong, and definitely more independent,” Terra Shanks said. “It’s hard for mom to let them fly the coop. I sent her all the way across the country, and she came back more independent. She’s also decided to set up her own savings fund, without any direction from dad or I.”
Shanks works as a busser at a local restaurant and as a lifeguard at the Camp Verde pool during the summer. “I never was that kid, I was always begging my parents for money, and she’s just, ‘Oh, I got this,’” Terra Shanks said. “She’s well off on her way of being on her own, and she’s only 16.”
“I’ve always enjoyed helping kids, teaching them new things, plus, I come from a long line of teachers,” Shanks said, discussing her plans to teach either preschool through second grade or high school juniors or seniors. Her father, grandparents and great-grandparents were all educators.
This semester, Shanks took the first steps to follow in the footsteps of her father and Camp Verde Middle School P.E teacher Donald Shanks by enrolling in the teacher training program at the Valley Academy for Career and Technology Education, which will enable her to earn up to 18 college credits through Yavapai College. She plans to eventually enroll at Northern Arizona University and would also like to coach volleyball someday.
“These first few weeks [of VACTE] were going over the basics, and we’re visiting schools throughout the Verde Valley and seeing what schools we like,” Shanks said. “Once we pick a school and a grade, we will get to go into those classrooms two days a week, and then the other two days we’ll be in the actual teaching classroom.”
