Life in the fast Lane(y)
My mornings are usually pretty hectic. Getting two kids out of bed, teeth brushed, lunches packed and hopefully wearing pants in below-freezing weather — it’s a tall task.
But each day when I rush into our basement office in Albert Emanuel, always late, disheveled and lugging a tumbler of coffee, Laney greets me with a smile and a “good morning!”
Alayna “Laney” Yates ’24, middle blocker on UD’s volleyball team who also earned her master’s in communication in December, was one of our student writers for almost a year.
She’d usually be the first one here; up since 5 a.m. She’d have already gone to weight lifting, taken a shower, eaten a good breakfast, done a little homework and started working in our office before I even sat down at my desk. And most days she even had time for a walk down to Brown Street for an iced coffee. Later, she’d go to class and practice for three hours.
She’s an athlete, and athletes are just wired differently. Her unrelenting drive to push beyond physical and mental limits isn’t just for the volleyball court. She lives each day with a laser-sharp focus and energizing motivation that I was just not born with.
And I got cut from the tennis team in 11th grade.
So, when I joked at a staff meeting last summer about how Laney could do anything — like shoot, run, pass, tackle or headball — she just laughed and said, “I’m game!”
We settled on sending her to different teams’ practices around campus and having her keep a journal about her experiences. This turned into this issue’s feature, “Put Me In, Coach” [Page 26]. After each sport, she came back saying, “I was so bad at everything. But man, it was fun!”
My son, Cooper (the kid standing as close to Laney as possible in the photo), is sports-obsessed. To him, athletes walk on water. It doesn’t matter if it’s Lionel Messi, Caitlin Clark or a high school football player. So, when we went to his first UD volleyball game to watch Laney, he begged me to take him down to the court to meet her.
We brought some friends, six kids in total, and got them all hopped up on soda and pizza at Kramers beforehand so that by the end of the game, they were wired. Laney invited our whole crew down to the floor, and her teammates signed a poster for each of them and took photos. Then she brought the kids onto the court for a photo with her — a regular one with smiles and a silly one with everyone’s tongues sticking out, of course.
These kids saw before them a tall, cool, kick-ass young woman who made the time to make each of them feel special. But what I saw in front of me was a Flyer, like so many of her fellow student-athletes, with the courage to fail and the determination to succeed.
Laney graduated in December, and while it’s hard whenever a student of ours graduates, I know wherever she lands, she’ll be incredibly successful … and be in line for an iced coffee way before me.
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A version of this article appears in print in the Spring 2025 University of Dayton Magazine, Page 68. EXPLORE THE ISSUE — MORE ONLINE