Jeyvic Spencer experiences what it’s like to be a Personal Trainer for the UConn Women’s Basketball team: Ep. 11 Talks With BAF4

On this episode of Talks With BAF4, we fea­ture junior, UConn Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing stu­dent, Jeyvic Spencer.

Jeyvic Spencer shares his expe­ri­ences through­out his jour­ney on how he became a per­son­al train­er for the UConn wom­en’s bas­ket­ball team, and the steps any­one can take into receiv­ing the same position. 

Resources:
Jeyvic Spencer LinkedIn page
Jeyvic Spencer High­school Info

Social Media Posts:
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Episode Tran­script:

Kevin Baf­four: Alrighty guys, this is stu­dent, UConn Jour­nal­ism stu­dent, Kevin Baf­four, and today I’m here with? 

Jehyvic Spencer: Jehyvic Spencer

Kevin Baf­four: Jehyvic Spencer, now pri­or to our con­ver­sa­tion you men­tioned that you had to try out in order to get the posi­tion to work­ing with the UConn Wom­en’s Bas­ket­ball Team.

Jehyvic Spencer: Yes.

Kevin Baf­four: So I wan­na know, say you did­n’t make the cut, where do you believe your stats as of right now would be at? Do you sup­pose you’ll just be a reg­u­lar stu­dent attend­ing college?

Jehyvic Spencer: Ummm, so pri­or to try­ing out I had played club bas­ket­ball my fresh­man year, I’m cur­rent­ly Junior, Um if all did­n’t go well, I would’ve played club bas­ket­ball and con­tin­ue with my stud­ies, but now that I am on the team, its kin­da like i’m man­ag­ing a lot of work­load and stuff like that. 

Kevin Baf­four: Now um, I haven’t heard about man­ag­ing, is this like a posi­tion where you got specif­i­cal­ly assigned or who.

Jehyvic Spencer: So it’s um, it’s a try­out for the wom­en’s bas­ket­ball team, they have their nor­mal prac­tices, they prac­tice prob­a­bly like six days a week, they have play­ers that are like men play­ers that prac­tice with them, still it’s kin­da like a scout team. Say they’re play­ing south car­oli­na or some­thing, they’ll have a men’s play­er that will scout that, like they will play the play­ers of the wom­en’s team for South Car­oli­na if that makes sense. Yeah, ok

Jehyvic Spencer:  So I kin­da had to try out for that posi­tion and then I made the team, and then from there we have our cer­tain prac­tice days and then we prac­tice against them and just com­pete, things like that.

Kevin Baf­four: Now a lot of peo­ple, me includ­ed, believe you tried out as a per­son­al train­er because you have pri­or expe­ri­ence, is that true?

Jehyvic Spencer: Um, so it’s kin­da like a broad try-out, any­body is wel­come, you kin­da got­ta get some forms in and um it’s like one of the coach­es, coach J, she kin­da watch­es over and they kin­da choose who they think will fit will to the prac­tice team.

Kevin Baf­four: Gotcha! Per­fect, now being a uconn stu­dent you got­ta train a lot of peo­ple and i’m assum­ing the sched­ule is real­ly busy, but that’s just what i’m assum­ing, what do you believe is like the biggest strug­gle with man­ag­ing and train­ing a team, along­side being a UConn Stu­dent com­plet­ing your studies.

Jehyvic Spencer:  Okay so, the hard­est thing is time-man­age­ment, and so with my work­load with class­es, I have a heavy work-load, but the way I kin­da made my sched­ule is so I would be able to prac­tice, as well as get my work done at man­age­able times.

Kevin Baf­four:  Now what if that was­n’t the case, do you think that like it would’ve been more of a strug­gle or like “yeah I can’t do this”

Jehyvic Spencer:  Yeah! Def­i­nite­ly, I um, going into this semes­ter I had some fear that I would­n’t be able to like main­tain the sched­ule that i’m doing but, after like going to my class­es and fig­ur­ing out what needs to be done with those class­es, I feel like me myself I am able to man­age, the work­load, if I was­n’t able to, I prob­a­bly would­n’t be play­ing against them because, I mean obvi­ous­ly school is more important 

Kevin Baf­four: It be like that yeah. Now, I did­n’t start off with this ques­tion but I believe this posi­tion aligns with your major, what is your major?

Jehyvic Spencer: My Major is Elec­tri­cal Engineering

Kevin Baf­four: Oh Wow!

Jehyvic Spencer: So it has noth­ing to.. It’s the com­plete­ly oppo­site things, but um.. Yeah.

Kevin Baf­four: That’s inter­est­ing cause um, with elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing its a very hard major so, wow, so do you think that um with intern­ships nowa­days with peo­ple who have to do intern­ships do you think I would have time for an intern­ship or gain­ing that expe­ri­ence of that field.

Jehyvic Spencer:  Yeah so, I def­i­nite­ly um, just recent­ly over the pass sum­mer I had an intern­ship and I feel like putting the prac­tice team on my resume kin­da help me because they could’ve been like “oh your a team play­er, you’re able to work with oth­er peo­ple” so that kin­da help me get the intern­ship, but as for time-man­age­ment with the intern­ship, it was more so work first or school first, and then extra cur­ric­u­lar after.

Kevin Baf­four: I like that, ok, now you men­tioned team man­age­ment. Now I’m like a leader myself I, I direct films, do a lot of screen-writ­ing, and I’m a jour­nal­ism major as well. Do you believe that a guy like me would fit per­fect­ly in that posi­tion man­ag­ing one of the bas­ket­ball play­ers? Like do I need pri­or expe­ri­ence or just any­one with that lead­er­ship role.

Jehyvic Spencer: Um, I think its uh, so its based off skills like bas­ket­ball skill, so thats kind of

Kevin Baf­four: Gen­er­al Knowledge 

Jehyvic Spencer: Yeah, if you have a past knowl­edge then yeah, but um, I think thats the only bar­ri­er, oth­er than that any­body, would be wel­come to do it.

Kevin Baf­four: Are they doing one maybe, prob­a­bly not this semes­ter, next semes­ter right?

Jehyvic Spencer: Uh, I don’t think next semes­ter, they do it before each sea­son, so they hold a try out every year in Sep­tem­ber and then from there they get their group of guys and from that group of guys they basi­cal­ly prac­tice through­out both semesters.

Kevin Baf­four: Damn so that means I’m done, cause I’m about to grad­u­ate in May, so that’s it for me.

Kevin Baf­four: but since become the wom­en’s per­son­al train­er, is that your name per­son­al trainer?

Jehyvic Spencer: It’s um prac­tice team play­er, that’s the actu­al name of it, it’s scout­ing and play­ing against them. You’re not on the team nec­es­sar­i­ly but you’re kind of, the more prac­tices you go to the more, the more you do with the team, your kind of one with them. If that makes sense.

Kevin Baf­four: Gotcha! And what has been your favorite moment train­ing the team

Jehyvic Spencer: My favorite moment is just com­pet­ing against them and just being num­ber two in the coun­try, and things like that, there’s a lot of perks and ben­e­fits in this position.

Kevin Baf­four: who specif­i­cal­ly are you always excit­ed to watch and train on the floor, I know there’s that one play­er you like.

Jehyvic Spencer:  Yeah so, me per­son­al­ly, I take it as a chal­lenge, in prac­tice to go out of my way to guard Paige, just because it’s Paige, she’s a real­ly good bas­ket­ball play­er and play­ing against her makes me real­ly better.

Kevin Baf­four: Okay and was she always your favorite, before join­ing UConn, did you fol­low-up with the Uconn Wom­en’s Bas­ket­ball team.

Jehyvic Spencer:  Yeah so I have a lit­tle bit of pri­or knowl­edge about the UConn Wom­en’s Bas­ket­ball team, but hon­est­ly she’s the face of wom­en’s bas­ket­ball right now, espe­cial­ly at this school. So it’s just great being around the team and her specifically.

Kevin Baf­four: Was there any inter­est in becom­ing a you men­tioned was it the a

Jehyvic Spencer: Prac­tice Player

Kevin Baf­four: Prac­tice Play­er for the UConn Men’s Bas­ket­ball team

Jehyvic Spencer: So this year I cur­rent­ly tried out for the walk on posi­tion with the mens team, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, they western’t inter­est­ed in tak­ing a play­er from the wom­en’s bas­ket­ball team

Kevin Baf­four: Really!?

Jehyvic Spencer: Yeah, so it kin­da can­celed out being a walk on, it sucked but I’m here where I am now. 

Kevin Baf­four: could you give out that rea­son or it’s too personal.

Jehyvic Spencer: Um, just the coach­es’ decisions.

Kevin Baf­four: Coach­es decision.

Jehyvic Spencer:  Yeah it had noth­ing to do with us I believe 

Kevin Baf­four: Okay, speak­ing of coach­es, Geno Auriem­ma, like one of the best coach­es. What’s your take on, like how do you feel he’s doing per­fect­ly um 

Jehyvic Spencer: I think his coach­ing is one of a kind, I mean I’ve been under a lot of coach­es dur­ing my time play­ing bas­ket­ball. I feel like Geno, I def­i­nite­ly learned the most from, and that’s just from being in prac­tice and doing what I’m doing.

Kevin Baf­four: Now do you think that, let’s just say hypo­thet­i­cal­ly you were part of the men’s bas­ket­ball team, do you think you would be a lit­tle bit more aggres­sive or different.

Jehyvic Spencer: I think it would be more aggres­sive just cause it’s like Men vs Men, kin­da like the same gen­der. Not say­ing that the wom­en’s team is less of the men’s team, but I’m say­ing as for phys­i­cal attrib­ut­es, it will def­i­nite­ly be a lit­tle bit hard­er and also height. A lot of guys on the men’s team are very tall.

Kevin Baf­four: I would assume the same for the wom­ens too.

Jehyvic Spencer: Yeah we have our fair share of taller play­ers but the men’s kind of, they’re a lit­tle taller. A bunch of them.

Kevin Baf­four: Okay, I fig­ure since you’re in your 3rd year you’re already used to get­ting to know the play­ers, was there any kind of like “oh i’m scared, i don’t know if i’m gonna do well” any kind of thought doubt.

Jehyvic Spencer: yeah for sure, so my first time going to the facil­i­ty first time prac­tic­ing, just first time every­thing I def­i­nite­ly had those jit­ters, you know sweaty hands and all that, but the more you go the more you prac­tice, you kind get used to it and you just click like that.

Kevin Baf­four: You see them as reg­u­lar people. 

Jehyvic Spencer: Yeah Yeah, a lot of peo­ple see them as Icons. Like you walk around you see Paige Beck­ers, Oh its Paige, and to us it’s like she’s a friend.

Kevin Baf­four: Now do you think there’s a lot of peo­ple say per­son­al friends that are, in the posi­tion of like “yo can you tell Paige to give me like a shout out” like have peo­ple ask for favors in the wom­en’s bas­ket­ball team 

Jehyvic Spencer: Um, not nec­es­sar­i­ly on cam­pus, cause I don’t real­ly go around and say I’m on the prac­tice team. But fam­i­ly mem­bers def­i­nite­ly, like the oth­er day my sis­ter, want­ed to tell Paige hap­py birth­day, cause yes­ter­day was her birthday.

Kevin Baf­four: Per­fect! Now with that being said we talked a lot about your cur­rent posi­tion, is there any­thing like to men­tion that you feel it’s impor­tant to the view­ers or any­thing to give to those peo­ple who want to lead a lead­er­ship role, any­thing you wan­na leave off.

Jehyvic Spencer: I think it’s impor­tant to be your­self, work hard and then just reach out to peo­ple, you nev­er know what could hap­pen. I mean I nev­er thought I would be in this posi­tion that I’m in but, now i’m here and im great for it, so.

Kevin Baf­four: There you go man, Jehyvic Spencer here giv­ing his part about his posi­tion on the Uconn wom­en’s bas­ket­ball team and its per­fect. So for any­body that wants to take the lead­er­ship role, there hav­ing anoth­er try out.

Jehyvic Spencer: Yeah there should be anoth­er try­out, next year, usu­al­ly every year they have a try out.

Kevin Baf­four: Ok, let me add on to that real quick, what do you hope to see for the new­er recruits before you leave, once you become a senior what do you wan­na see from either the play­ers or the new recruit­ments itself.

Jehyvic Spencer: Hon­est­ly this year I’m excit­ed, because I feel like they have a great chance to win a nation­al cham­pi­onship and the men’s team to win it back to back for the wom­ens to win one right after would be insane, def­i­nite­ly on this campus.

Kevin Baf­four: that’s what it is man

Jehyvic Spencer: Yeah, Go Huskies

Kevin Baf­four: Exact­ly Go Huskies, there you go, i’ve been kevin baf­four, this has been Jehyvic spencer, I’m out, bye. 

Time Stamp: 00:11:22