Congratulations to Brendan, captain of the Volleyball team at Medway, who recently won the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sport’ award as well as ‘Best Team’ and ‘Best Society’ for Volleyball at the Medway Activity Awards! Hear from Brendan:
“My name is Brendan Papp, and I am in my last year as a Journalism student at the University of Kent. I have been the volleyball president for two years here in Medway, and I am also the Editor-In-Chief of Inquire, the student newspaper at Kent. On top of those, I am the sole student representative for my class, as well as the longest tenured International Student Advisory Board member. Aside from school, I primarily play football and write. I grew up in Washington D.C. and moved to England for university in 2022.”
Congrats for your recent awards in volleyball at the Medway Activity Awards! Can you tell us about the volleyball team you captain and what this experience has meant to you?
“I was very lucky when I joined the volleyball team around three years ago. Alex Kitchen was the president at the time and became a mentor. Alex was not only a phenomenal player, he was also a great leader and a great coach. Alex constantly inspired the team around him through not only his words but his actions too. That stuck with me. I saw the community he was trying to build, and when he left, I knew I wanted to continue his outstanding legacy. Though I was never the player, or the natural leader he was, I had to try. Thankfully, with the team around me, we were more than successful.
Medway is a difficult place to drive engagement as it is a much smaller campus than Canterbury with a much smaller student body. Creating a community with volleyball at its centre had its roots, but we had to expand it to continue volleyball as a sport.
We surpassed all expectations for what a Medway sport is thought of achieving. We had up to 50 people come to games, for both men’s and women’s. People showed up in theme, costumes and colours, to show team support. We proved that the stereotype of apathy in Medway does not actually exist. We do have passionate people here. Students care and will work hard to create something we could all be very proud of. This is my legacy.
I am so happy to have been part of the team that created the best volleyball community in the country. We play in the park weekly now that the season has ended. Afterwards, we play mafia or watch a movie; we stick together. First year, only a couple of my friends played the sport; now, nearly every single one of my friends plays the sport. We are growing yearly, and I am excited to see how we grow next. Konstantin Schmidt and Prakriti Gurung are going to do amazing things for this society and for the entirety of the Medway campus. That continuation means more than any award I will ever receive.”
What advice would you give to other students?
“I wrote an editorial column this year for Inquire. In each edition, I gave a different piece of advice, but it was all under the same umbrella. Self-love is so important. It is the first piece of a puzzle; if you do not have it, you need to find a way to find it. The rest of the puzzle pieces are a lot easier to fill: teamwork, passion, and doing your best. I hate the notion of being a try-hard being a bad thing. It is not, it is a great thing. It means you have a competitive drive in whatever you do, to be your very best at it. You cannot get stronger unless you push yourself further than you thought you could. Your mentality is the same. When you feel like giving up, do not stop, because that is when you just passed the starting line.”
What are your plans for the next year?
“I will be moving to Madrid in October to start my sports management course with Real Madrid. When doing my work with volleyball and Inquire, I realised how much I loved working with other people. It was my true passion. I am excited to start my master’s there, and it will be my first step to impact the world of sport. I have many different dreams in how I will use that degree, but one is starting to stick out. Community engagement: I love watching a community grow around a central idea or sport, and I want to help people who might not have access to this type of community gain access to it. I am confident I will learn and acquire the tools to help people in new ways.”
Do you know an inspirational student or student group? Let us know.