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Turkish volleyball player Ece Taner steps up as leader for Tar Heels

Ece Taner, a senior varsity  member of the Carolina Volleyball team, pictured on Tuesday evening in Carmichael Arena.
Ece Taner, a senior varsity member of the Carolina Volleyball team, pictured on Tuesday evening in Carmichael Arena.

Absent is the athletic tape she wears around her left wrist and hand. For Taner, the bandage serves as more of a reminder than protection — a reminder of the repercussions her relentless pursuit of the ball can lead to.

“It always reminds me that hand is not that stable, so I’m more cautious of it, and I don’t try to jam it on the floor or something,” said Taner, who broke her hand her freshman year and had a plate and two screws inserted.

But that doesn’t stop Taner. She’s faced much stiffer obstacles en route to attaining the position she’s in today.

Several other hurdles have stood in the way for the Turkey native in her transition from a silent freshman in an unfamiliar country to the voice behind the No. 12 team in the nation.

After letting her play do the talking for most of her career, being the vocal leader for UNC is a new position she never could’ve seen herself in.

“When I first got here, I was so quiet,” Taner said. “I wouldn’t talk at the huddles. I was kind of that person who didn’t have a voice on the team, but I would do my job.”

“Looking back now, I’m like, ‘Wow, I never thought I’d come to where I am now.’”

‘Love at first touch’

Taner was born in Izmir, Turkey — more than 5,000 miles away from Chapel Hill.

She spent her formative years growing up in the city — exploring it by foot and by cab, indulging in city life and driving with her family to the beach during the summer.

In fifth grade, Taner’s gym teacher introduced her to volleyball. It was love at first touch.

“The first day I set foot (on the court), I was like, ‘Wow, I love this. I want to stick with this,” Taner said. “I wasn’t very into academics. My brother was always the bright child in the classroom, so I was like, ‘I need to be good at something ... I’m going to accomplish this mission. I’m going to play in college, and I’m going to play professional.”

Taner developed a well-rounded skill set. Having experience at nearly every other position — including outside hitter and middle blocker, despite her 5-foot-6 frame — she found a home at libero in her junior year of high school. The libero is a type of defensive specialist who wears a different color jersey, playing the back row only. As UNC’s libero, Taner is the only player who never steps off the court.

“Transitioning to libero, I kind of had a background from hitting, so I knew what the hitter wanted to do, so defense kind of got easier for me,” she said. “So I think that definitely helped me develop a basic, stable, fundamental skill.”

A world away

Coach Joe Sagula remembers when he first met Taner.

As a sophomore in high school, Taner traveled to the U.S. to attend UNC’s volleyball camp. Sagula said Taner’s exceptional playing experience and diverse skill set immediately caught his eye.

“We were doing some drills, and she said, ‘Well, I can set.’ So she set. And then she says she can play back row and she would be the libero, so she did that,” he said. “She did everything but play middle hitter.”

With the Atlantic Ocean between them, Sagula was limited to email correspondence with Taner and relied on videos to watch her play.

Taner’s play on tape did what words could not. Her play spoke for itself and earned her a scholarship to UNC.

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But doubts about her performance on the court never crept into Taner’s mind during the recruitment. She was more concerned with her performance in the classroom.

“I was mostly concerned with how my transcripts would transfer or if my grades wouldn’t be enough, because I had to take the SAT and that was more challenging for me because English is my second language,” she said.

But she made it. And in 2011, Taner came back to UNC— the school she fell in love with just a few years before.

Elvio Paradiso — the president of Taner’s club team in Turkey and her coach for nearly two years — said while her talent was exceptional, Taner would face many new challenges in the U.S.

“Anything new is nice, but difficult,” said Paradiso in an email. “Doubts about if she can do it also in U.S., if she can still be a leader after being so many years in Turkey, can give stress.”

An unfamiliar world

The freshman libero with the hard-to-pronounce name arrived on campus in the fall of 2011.

“I had no idea what to expect when I found out a girl from Turkey was coming, and I struggled to pronounce her name,” said senior defensive specialist Chaney LaReau.

Taner struggled with missing her family.

“They’re really far away,” Taner said. “They’re across the world. So not being able to talk to them whenever I wanted to was a struggle.”

She had trouble navigating campus and comprehending Western cuisine — cheaper food at home was more nutritious than American fast food.

But Taner knew she’d have to learn to deal.

“I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to have to get used to this.’”

To the surprise of her teammates, what challenged Taner the least was her ability to converse with them.

“Honestly, I thought we weren’t going to be able to communicate, but she speaks better English than most English speakers natively do,” said senior outside hitter Lauren McAdoo.

But what served as Taner’s Achilles’ heel early on at UNC was her ability to grasp what was going on in her classes.

“It almost was deceptive in that she sounded more American and her English was so good, you would forget she was foreign,” Sagula said.

“But there in the background, she was having to take in a lot of different things to be here — being away from home, and then academically realizing she had to follow and comprehend things in classes.”

With the assistance of Tony Yount, the team’s academic adviser and one of the people Taner said has impacted her life the most, she surmounted her academic struggles.

On the volleyball court, Sagula said Taner had to adjust to enduring more physical training and conditioning, as well as being with the team seven days a week as opposed to once or twice per week like she did for her club team.

But Sagula said Taner seemed to find an outlet from the rest of the unfamiliar world when she was on the court.

She and her teammates spoke the same language on the floor.

While she remained fairly silent, Taner’s performance did the talking. But Sagula knew after stepping into the lineup the way she did as a freshman, Taner would one day be the voice of the Tar Heels.

“She handled stepping in like a veteran,” Sagula said. “As we saw that, then we started putting more responsibilities on her and wanted her to be a leader.”

‘The voice that guides’

Now a senior, Taner is finally becoming the leader Sagula imagined she’d be when she first set foot on campus.

Taner’s voice is the voice that guides UNC and is heard in the middle of each and every huddle. It’s the voice that has carried UNC to a 12-2 start to the season and the voice the team hopes can carry it deeper into the NCAA Tournament.

It took some time and adjustments, but the soft-voiced Turkey native has finally acclimated to her surroundings and the role her coach always imagined her in.

“She’s finally feeling comfortable that she has the ability to tell others, ‘Hey, follow me.’ I think she’s always been a very humble person — never pushed herself on people,” Sagula said. “But people have always loved Ece from the first day she’s been here.”

Taner’s performance on the court is now not only seen but is heard. Her voice motivates her teammates’ to perform at a high level.

“She’s always all over the place. I trust her a lot — all of us hitters do — to defend,” said redshirt senior Chaniel Nelson. “We can swing as hard as we want, and we know Ece is going to be there always, talking to us and encouraging us.”

Through 47 sets this season, Taner leads the team with 187 digs. Her 1,278 career digs entering tonight’s match against Virginia place her within reach of UNC’s top-five career digs mark with 14 games remaining in the regular season. Her 3.44 career dig average per set currently has her in the No. 3 spot on the school’s all-time list.

But now, the more pressing demand is being the captain her teammates believed she could be when they selected her for the position.

“I figured out how to deal with things. Opportunities just come to you, so you just got to take them and make the best out of it,” Taner said. “So I think that’s where I am right now. I’m just taking this leadership opportunity and trying to be the best leader I can be for this team.”

sports@dailytarheel.com