Page 12 - Graypvine November 2021

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Jeff Jendryk (upper right), plays volleyball in a match against Brazil.

Jeff Jendryk's son sets

sights on Olympics

Jeff Jendryk’s son, Jeff II, loved playing basketball that he should give volleyball a chance, he wasn’t
since he was a young kid, but one summer, as he incredibly interested but decided to attend tryouts at
spent time warming the bench during a high school Sports Performance in Aurora.
tournament, his dad offered some unusual fatherly “All the coaches came up and said to me, ‘Hey
advice by saying, “You’re not a LeBron James.” Mr. J., what are you doing here?’” recalled Jeff Sr. “I
That can sound a bit harsh without any said, ‘I’m here with my son.’ They said, ‘You have a
background, but today Jeff competes as one of the son?’ Then they watched for a while and said, ‘He’s
U.S.’s top professional volleyball players and has pretty good! How long has he been playing?’ I said,
spent the past five years travelling the world. To say ‘7 minutes.’”
his dad, Jeff Sr. -- the Vice President of Business Jeff, who was 17 at the time, was selected for
Development for Spec Engineering -- is proud of his the Sports Performance club team, and was then
accomplishments would be an understatement. selected for the junior national team and ended up
As a kid, Jeff watched his older sisters participate in travelling to Canada and Mexico for international
the number one U.S. volleyball club in their hometown competitions...all during his first year of playing
of Aurora, Illinois. Both sisters were All American volleyball. Jeff has now been on the U.S. national
players, but Jeff only played games with them at team since 2015; he made the U.S. junior national
home in their backyard. When his dad mentioned team and then the men’s national team, which is