When Mary Lake steps onto the volleyball court Wednesday for LOVB Salt Lake’s home opener, she’ll hear cheers different than the ones she was used to hearing in college at BYU’s Smith Fieldhouse.
This time, Lake will hear the cheer, “Go, mama” from her almost 20 month-old son, Tommy.
Tommy wasn’t around for his mom’s games at BYU, but now he’ll be able to watch her play professionally in the League One Professional Volleyball league, or LOVB (pronounced “love”) Pro league for short.
It’s an opportunity that for the longest time didn’t seem possible for Lake. After graduating from BYU five years ago, she worked as a CPA then gave birth to Tommy.
But now Lake is making her return to the sport she loves thanks to a first-of-its-kind league. Here’s how Lake ended up as part of LOVB Salt Lake.
Mary Lake’s journey to LOVB
Up until recently, the only professional volleyball opportunities for American women were overseas.
But many of the international leagues had limits on how many foreigners they could have on a team. Spots for U.S. players normally went to middle or outside hitters, not to liberos like Lake.
It seemed like she was going to have to be satisfied with the limited taste of professional play she got in college, when she was part of Team USA for the 2019 Volleyball Nations League tournament — and had her passport stolen along the way on a flight from China to Russia — and the 2019 Olympic Qualification Tournament.
“I just knew that I wasn’t going to be paid very much. It was going to be hard to find contracts, and I had an accounting degree, and I just felt like I wanted to pursue that. So I never really dreamed of there being leagues in America, and I wish that they had been there when I finished college because I definitely would have kept going,” Lake told the Deseret News.
She focused on building a career and a family. But then, the volleyball itch came back.
Last winter, Lake began coaching a club volleyball team for 16-year-olds at Club V, one of the club teams in the LOVB league’s youth volleyball network.
“That really kind of sparked my desire to play again,” Lake said.
Luckily, it also connected her to the new professional league and team coming to Salt Lake.
Knowing the team would train at Club V — only a five minute drive away from her home — Lake reached out to the league to see if the Salt Lake team needed a libero. Turns out, it did.
“They were stoked. They were so happy for me. They were pumped that I was gonna get back into it,” she said.
Lake began training last January and then, in the fall, participated in the Athletes Unlimited Pro Volleyball league, a five-week pickup-style league with weekly rotating rosters, to help her prepare for joining LOVB.
Balancing motherhood and professional volleyball
Now that she’s a mom, Lake’s life as a professional athlete looks a little different than that of her teammates, but she’s “having so much fun.”
“When my teammates are tired, they can go home and take a nap, and I can’t really do that. But I really feel like myself again, and it’s so fun being able to contribute to your team, to give my full effort every day. And my team is so wonderful that I’m just having so much fun. So it’s been awesome, honestly,” she said.
For Lake, the key to balancing motherhood and her volleyball career is compartmentalizing, she said.
“When I come home, I really need to turn on mom mode and spend time with my son and really connect with him,” she said. “When I was just me, my volleyball was like my grind time, and then my at home (time) was when I would relax. But right now, being in the gym is my relaxing time, and coming home is like, ‘OK, I want to be a good mom.’”
Motherhood has changed Lake’s perspective on volleyball. She’s now Tommy’s mom first and foremost.
“I come home and there’s this little human who needs me, and I know that, like, worst comes to worst, volleyball isn’t my biggest priority anymore. My biggest priority is my son. So I know that if things get too hard or I’m not loving it, I still have my family,” she said.
While Tommy may be too young right now to understand much about volleyball, Lake hopes he can learn from the example of both her and her husband, Jeff Bennett, during her professional career.
“Being a mom, you want to just be there all the time with your kid, but I think there is some value in him seeing me do something really hard, and in him seeing my husband support me through that, like having a father who just is really selfless, and from the very beginning has told me, ‘I’ll do anything I need to do to help you,‘” she said.
Lake’s professional volleyball career truly is a family affair. Her husband acts as her agent, though “that’s a loose word,” Lake said. But he reviews all of her documents and receives official emails on her behalf.
“He was the one who really pushed me to ask and to do it. I think that that will be the most valuable, like, seeing how we support each other in this new phase I think is like, it’s awesome knowing that he’ll be able to see that,” she said.
With LOVB Salt Lake’s first three games having been on the road, Tommy hasn’t attended one of his mom’s games yet. Lake decided it was best for him to stay in his routine at home.
But he’ll be in the crowd Wednesday alongside hopefully thousands of fans when LOVB Salt Lake faces LOVB Houston in Taylorsville, Utah, where Lake hopes Utahns will “give volleyball a shot.”
“I came from BYU where women’s volleyball is a big deal,” she said. “BYU knows how fun it is. But I would say to the rest of Salt Lake, it is such a fun sport and just kind of give it a chance. It’s easy to watch. It’s fun to watch. It’s really exciting.