Volleyball
Favorite athlete: LeSean McCoy
Favorite teams: Eagles, Phillies, Sixers and the Duke Blue Devils
Favorite memory competing in sports: Playing the championship game for my basketball league at the Wells Fargo Center and winning the game!
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: A teammate during a basketball game called a timeout and asked to go to the bathroom.
Music on iPod: Jay Z & Kanye West
Future plans: Attend Syracuse University or Drexel University for Sports Management
Words to live by: “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” – Jim Valvano
One goal before turning 30: Have a successful career in the sports industry and begin to start a family.
One thing people don’t know about me: One day during football practice for my middle school team in seventh grade, I suffered a severe concussion and had amnesia for over two months, and I could only remember my parents. I had no recollection of the rest of my family or any friends. It was the scariest experience in my life. Luckily, my memory was restored in a flash one night while sitting with my family.
By Mary Jane Souder
Ask Sam Spector his dream job, and without a moment’s hesitation, the Cheltenham senior has an answer.
“General manager of the Eagles,” he said.
And then after a brief pause added, “But realistically, I would like to be an athletic director for a Division One school.”
Don’t count Spector out as a future GM of the Eagles. The two-year captain, according to his volleyball coach, is going to succeed at whatever he chooses to do in life.
“There wasn’t a single kid who didn’t vote for him for captain,” coach Chris Manser said. “He’s great in the classroom, he’s great in the community, and he has a great family.
“He has everything really that a kid needs to be successful, and he translates that right over to volleyball. You wouldn’t look at him and know he’s any kind of athlete. He’s not big, and he’s not especially fast, but he’s really smart, and he works really, really hard.”
Those traits have served Spector well as a defensive specialist for the Panthers’ varsity volleyball team the past three years.
“The best thing about Sam is he’s not going to show up on any stat sheet, but he just does whatever I ask him to do,” Manser said. “He finishes second or third in every category, whether it’s digs or passing or serving percentage or aces.
“Whatever it is – he’s very steady, and I think the other kids recognize that.”
Beyond providing a steadying presence defensively, Spector also is an effective leader.
“He knows where everyone else is supposed to be in addition to himself,” Manser said. “It’s like having the point guard and the quarterback. A lot of times that’s a setter, but we had a new setter last year and a new setter again this year.
“Sam’s kind of the veteran guy. He does it from the bench when he’s not in the game. He’s always talking to the kids and making sure they know where to be. If they make a mistake, he’s there to either offer constructive criticism or a pat on the back or something like that. He really is like having another coach, which is great.”
Playing volleyball is just one small piece of Spector’s life. He has been playing basketball since he was in second grade and continues to play in a junior league. He is active in community service and has organized a Run for Jake 5K race in memory of a Cheltenham student to promote childhood cancer research. He also has held a job since he was in tenth grade and is presently employed at Schmooze Deli.
That has not kept Spector from excelling in the classroom. He is in the top 13 percent of his class and carries a 3.7 unweighted grade point average. Spector’s course load includes AP classes, and he is taking a dual enrollment class at Penn State Abington. A member of the National Honor Society, he has been offered full tuition scholarships to both Syracuse and Drexel and has been accepted into all five schools on his college list.
“Academics has always come first,” Spector said. “I’m a student-athlete first.”
Spector has been competing in sports for as long as he can remember. As a youngster, he was involved in travel soccer, and he moved from there into basketball. Last year his Junior Jewish Basketball League team captured the championship in a game played at Wells Fargo Center.
“I have always loved basketball,” Spector said. “It was always my favorite sport.
“When it came to high school, I just stopped growing and wasn’t as athletic as others, but I definitely wanted to keep playing.”
Volleyball entered the scene in ninth grade.
“I had only played a couple of times in gym class in junior high, and I liked it,” he said. “One of my neighbors, who was the captain of the team at the time, was trying to get people to come out and try it out for a day.
“I came out, and I really liked it. It was a lot of fun, and I loved it ever since.”
As a freshman, Spector was the libero for the junior varsity but got a taste of varsity at the end of the season. He’s been a fixture at defensive specialist the last three years, and he has enjoyed every minute of the experience.
“I feel like it’s the anchor of the (team),” Spector said. “You don’t have the opportunity to hit or get a kill unless you get a good pass up, so I take pride in getting a good pass to the setter.
“It’s just as rewarding for me when someone on my team gets a hit off of one of my passes. For me, serving is equivalent to hitting. That’s what I really take pride in.”
Spector admits he takes his role as captain seriously.
“When I come out of the game, I just try and keep my teammates up, just talk as much as I can from the bench, call balls in or out,” he said. “It gives me a chance to talk with the coach if I’m seeing something on the court, and I communicate with him.”
Cheltenham competes in the same league as perennial district powers Pennridge and Souderton, and in an attempt to upgrade their program, the players competed in the Indian Valley Volleyball League this winter.
“We drove (to Souderton) every Monday just to get more reps, to work together just to make sure that we’re sharp when the season starts,” said Spector, who was one of two drivers each week. “We know all those other teams started way before us, and they play year round.”
For his part, Spector, enjoys the challenge of playing the area’s top teams.
“I look forward to those matches,” he said. “We just go out and try and play loose, just play as aggressive as possible, and we try and have fun.
“When we’re playing those teams, we work on things we can control – our serves, no unforced errors, just getting to the spot we need to be defensively, communication. None of those things should be affected by the team on the other side of the court. We have to work on the things we can control. It’s an opportunity to try and improve.”
Spector hasn’t ruled out the possibility of playing club volleyball at the collegiate level and says he wouldn’t have wanted to miss the experience of playing the sport in high school.
“It’s definitely been great,” he said. “I made a lot of new friends, and volleyball gives me something to get away from school and the stressful events in life, like making a college decision. It just helps to get away from it and be with the team. We’re really close as a team. We go out to lunch, we’ll go out to dinner after a win.”
The college decision looms large for Spector, who has been named an AJ Drexel Scholar and has earned a similar distinction at Syracuse. He also has been accepted at Delaware, Temple, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
“At all the schools I applied to, I could see myself happy there,” he said. “Right now it’s between Drexel and Syracuse, and I’m leaning towards Syracuse.”
Spector plans to major in sports management, and he knows he will get top flight training in that field at Syracuse’s David B. Falk Center for Sports Management, named for the former agent of Michael Jordan who has donated $20 million to the school.
“I have always had a passion for sports since I was young and knew I always wanted to work in the sports industry,” he said. “I will watch anything with a ball.
“My parents don’t understand it. My dad is into music and was an actor. They don’t know where it came from, but I’ve always had a passion for sports.”
A passion that Spector plans to turn into a career.
