Bump Set Chat! The place to hear from your favorite volleyball personalities! - Berkeley Oblad’s Road to the Pros: A Volleyball Journey

Berkeley Oblad’s Road to the Pros: A Volleyball Journey

10/25/24 • 57 min

Bump Set Chat! The place to hear from your favorite volleyball personalities!

Meet Berkeley, who plays for the Vegas Thrill.

Hear about her journey from playing college ball at Utah and then over seas in the pro legaues. Now she comes home to play in her backyard of Vegas! Oblad majored in graphic design at Utah. She is the daughter of Jeremy and Jody Oblad and has one brother and one sister. She was honored as the 2014 Nevada Gatorade Player of the Year after leading Coronado High School to its second consecutive state championship. Oblad owns a dog, a boxer named Blink, named after the band Blink-182. She mentions Ruben Herrera, a former club coach and current president of Vegas Thrill, as a mentor. In addition to volleyball, she played soccer and tennis and learned the piano while growing up. Her hobbies include reading, writing, photography, fashion, graphic design, sewing, hiking, pottery, painting, and exploring new places. She also runs a literary and art magazine with a friend called Quixotic. Other Professional Experience: Oblad made her professional debut with 1MCM Diamont Kaposvar in the Hungarian league in 2020. She played for Les Mariannes in France during the 2020-21 campaign and competed for TopSpeed in Taiwan in the 2021-22 season. In 2024, she joined the Vegas Thrill in the inaugural Pro Volleyball Federation campaign, posting a .303 hitting percentage with 145 kills, along with 38 blocks and 48 digs.

Meet Berkeley, who plays for the Vegas Thrill.

Previous Episode

From Ground Zero to Game Day: Anders Nelson's Journey with Vanderbilt Volleyball

What is it like to start a division 1 NCAA volleyball program from scratch? Anders Nelson coach of Vanderbilt is in the midst of that right now! A rising star in the coaching profession and integral part of the first SEC volleyball program to win a national championship, Anders Nelson (pronounced ahn-ders) will usher in a new era of Vanderbilt volleyball as the reintroduced program’s first head coach, the university announced. In April 2022, Vanderbilt announced the addition of volleyball as its 17th varsity sport. The program was originally discontinued after the 1979-80 academic year. “It is a unique honor to join the Vanderbilt family as the first head volleyball coach of this new era,” Nelson said. “From the beginning of my lifelong relationship with volleyball, I learned to value not only the thrill of competition but the opportunity to influence how young people see themselves and the world around them. “Challenging and supporting student-athletes to be their best on the court unlocks their potential off the court. To build an SEC program on those principles, in a vibrant and dynamic city, at a world-class university like Vanderbilt is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’m grateful to Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and Candice Lee for entrusting it to me. There is so much to do before 2025, and I can’t wait to get started.” Most recently the associate head coach at the University of Kentucky, where he helped mentor student-athletes who won the 2020 NCAA Championship and recently extended a streak of winning at least a share of six consecutive SEC championships, Nelson will lead a Commodore program that begins play in the 2025-26 academic year.

Next Episode

The Rise of Kelly Hunter: A Husker Legend’s Volleyball Journey

Kelly Hunter, a three-time Husker All-American and two-time national champion, was promoted to assistant coach on Dec. 22, 2021. Hunter previously spent three seasons on the Husker staff as a graduate assistant (2019) and a volunteer coach (2020-21). She also served as an interim assistant coach from January to August of 2020. Overall, Hunter has spent 10 of the last 11 seasons with the Husker program as either a player (2013-17) or coach (2019-23). In those 10 seasons, Nebraska has posted a top-10 finish every year, winning two national championships, playing in four NCAA Finals and making five trips to the final four.Primarily working with Nebraska’s setters, Hunter helped freshman Bergen Reilly earn Big Ten Setter of the Year and AVCA All-America Second Team honors in 2023 as the Huskers won the Big Ten title and reached the NCAA Championship match. Reilly was the first freshman to win Big Ten Setter of the Year since the award originated in 2012, and she led all Big Ten setters with 10.51 assists per set.As a volunteer coach in 2021, Hunter helped Nebraska finish as the national runner-up. The Huskers finished with a No. 2 final ranking after a memorable run to the National Championship match as the No. 10 seed. In her first season as a volunteer coach in 2020, Hunter and the Huskers had their season disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic postponed the season until the spring and despite a limited Big Ten-only schedule, the Huskers made an NCAA Regional Final. Hunter was a graduate assistant coach for the Huskers in the 2019 season following a professional playing career overseas.Hunter was named a first-team AVCA All-American, the Big Ten Setter of the Year and an All-Big Ten selection for the second time in her career following her 2017 senior season. She received numerous honors from volleyball publications, including National Player of the Year and All-America first-team honors from PrepVolleyball.com and VolleyMob.com. Hunter was also named co-Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Championship with teammate Mikaela Foecke after the Huskers beat Florida in the national title match in 2017.The Papillion, Neb., native earned CoSIDA Academic All-District first-team accolades and was named a semifinalist for the Senior CLASS Award. She ended her career with 4,125 assists, the second-most in Husker history, and she totaled 699 career postseason assists, the highest total in school history. Hunter finished her career with a 16-1 record in the NCAA Tournament as Nebraska’s starting setter, posting the most wins and highest postseason winning percentage by a starting setter in Husker history.Hunter earned her bachelor’s degree in management and marketing in May 2017. She graduated with her master’s degree in the arts of business administration from Nebraska in December 2019.