Female Athlete of the Year Tatum Stall leads her team on and off the court

Tatum Stall is going into her fourth year as an outside hitter on the USU women’s volleyball team. Last season, she helped lead her team to the NCAA tournament and was named USU’s Female Athlete of the Year for 2022-2023.

Stall is a senior from Chandler, Arizona studying marketing. She worked as a marketing intern for USU athletics during the 2022 spring semester, and over the summer, she interned at a marketing agency.

Stall has been playing volleyball since she was ten years old. She said she chose volleyball because she was scared of other sports that involved a ball like softball and basketball.

“I just so happened to pick up a volleyball at a sand court one day with one of my family friends,” Stall said in a phone interview. “And they were just like, ‘Let’s see if you’re good at volleyball,’ and I was like, ‘OK.’ So she thought I was good at volleyball, and then I started playing club. And I am in my 11th year of playing volleyball, and I’ve loved it ever since.”

She played club volleyball throughout junior high and high school and fell in love with Logan when she would come up to watch her brother, Klay Stall, play for the USU basketball team. Stall was recruited to the volleyball team by Grayson DuBose, head coach at the time.

Stall said “everything just lined up perfectly” with her recruitment to USU.

“I always loved the college town and that Utah had four seasons because we don’t really get that in Arizona — it’s just constantly 115 degrees,” Stall said. “I loved how safe it was up here too, and I also don’t like the city, so I was more of a college town girl to begin with.”

Starting her sophomore year of high school, Stall was looked at by multiple mid-major schools. She said it was a challenge for her because she wasn’t looked at by any Power Five schools, but she eventually realized that going to a Power Five school wouldn’t be what she wanted as an athlete.

“I wanted to go to a school that I would get there and automatically make an impact,” Stall said.

Stall was able to make that impact on the USU team, as she was able to play in all 15 matches as a freshman in the 2020 season.

Chloe Hirst has worked as the associate head coach for the USU volleyball team since 2020 and started at USU at the same time as head coach Rob Neilson. In a phone interview, she shared how Stall fits into the team and the role she plays for her teammates.

“Tatum is such a leader on our team, and sometimes she doesn’t even realize how much of a leader she is,” Hirst said. “Her teammates look to her for sure.”

Hirst said how Stall connects with her teammates is a big deal for the volleyball program and the success of the team overall.

“Everything is obviously all fun and dandy when a team is winning, and all the band-aids come off when a team loses,” Stall said. “But I feel like I have so much trust and confidence in my teammates, and they have the same in me. And we know what we can do on the court together.”

Stall was not at the ceremony when she won Female Athlete of the Year due to a team scrimmage. She found out about the award when her assistant coach called her.

“I was just in complete shock because they were like, ‘Yeah, it’s probably one of the biggest awards that you can get being an athlete here,’ and I didn’t realize that,” Stall said. “I was super honored to receive that award, and it was cool to be recognized in front of all the athletes.”

Hirst shared why she thought Stall won this award.

“I mean, obviously, she produces really good numbers for us,” Hirst said. “It’s very rare that Tatum comes off the court for us, and match, after match, after match, Tatum shows up. And so probably, that’s a big contributing factor as to why she received that award.”

One of Stall’s teammates, Kennedi Boyd, a fifth-year who started at Arizona State University and plays middle blocker, said Stall probably plays “the most influential position.”

“No one I know worked harder than her this year,” Boyd said in a phone interview. “She’s led us to championships. She capitalized in games; we really needed her to carry out the wins.”

Over the past three years since Neilson became the team’s head coach, the team has gotten better each year having stronger seasons each time.

“Ever since I got here, my freshman year, every year has gotten better,” Stall said. “We had COVID, and that’s the bottom of the bottom. And then the next year, we had our first winning season in, I don’t know, five years, and we tied for a conference championship. And then this year, we owned it all and won the conference tournament and went to the NCAA. And so I was like, it’s just gotten better every year. I don’t know how we can top it this year.”

In July, Stall traveled to Europe with the Mountain West Conference All-Star team, a group of the best volleyball players in the conference, to play in the Global Challenge tournament in Slovenia.

During this tournament, they played against national teams and junior national teams from different countries around the world. The Mountain West team won the Global Championship Challenge.

“It’s just an awesome experience for Tatum,” Hirst said. “Well, one, to see Europe and to see different countries and different places in the world. And then to play at a high level with a lot of other top performers in our conference. And then the international game is just — it’s super high level, it’s fast, it’s competitive. So for her to gain that experience is invaluable to her as a player and hopefully for her as a person as well.”

Stall said over the past three years being in Logan and playing for the team, she learned to have more confidence in herself, among other things.

“I have learned to enjoy the little moments, especially with my teammates, because, you know, we spend every minute together,” Stall said.

“And when we see each other again in 10 years, we’re not going to talk about the wins and losses. We’re going to talk about how we went line dancing in Logan, Utah as a team, and I feel like just cherishing those little moments because it does go by so fast.”

Stall described herself as being confident, creative, hard-working, persistent and sociable. She also said she is proud of herself for her determination and for accomplishing the goals that she has set for herself in volleyball, in school and in life.

Boyd described Stall as being honest, caring and loving.

“She’s just so strong, and people can see that in her,” Boyd said. “She’s very strong. She’s very confident. But she’s also very humble. She’s very selfless at the same time, too, which has been such a cool side to see from her.”

As a coach, Hirst said she sees the whole team, including Stall, give full effort every single time.

“It’s just a group of young women that get after it every single day in the gym. I don’t know if we’ve ever had to ask them to give more effort,” Hirst said.

Stall, Hirst and Boyd said they look forward to this next season and to seeing what they can accomplish with a tougher schedule as the team improves.

“I’m not settling for last year,” Stall said. “We’re a better team than last year. I know we have more wins coming our way next year; we want another ring next year.”