This edition of Student Athlete Spotlights covers Beach Volleyball’s very own Riley Rushing. She is a junior in her second season for the UT Martin Skyhawks. She is a major in Mass Media and Strategic Communication from Snowmass Village, Colorado. Rushing features an impressive background in Volleyball in her high school career at Aspen, where she earned 2019 all-conference second team, 2021 all-conference first team and all-state honorable mention. She was also named team MVP twice.
Rushing’s love for beach volleyball came during her junior year of high school. At the boarding school in the south, she played and practiced beach volleyball in Port Saint Lucie, Florida and Orange Beach, Alabama.
“Playing beach volleyball, I fell in love with it and I love it so much more than indoor because you have so much more control over the game,” said Rushing. She then found a beach volleyball club back home in Denver, Colorado and commuted four hours for three days of the week.
Rushing comes from a sports family with her mother, Caroline Rushing, having played tennis for the LSU Tigers and the Southern Miss Golden Eagles, while her grandfather, Allen Rushing, played basketball for the Furman Paladins.
Before the Skyhawks, Rushing played two seasons with the Tusculum University Pioneers. In her time, the Pioneers team went 11-14 in her freshman season and 21-12 in her sophomore season. In her sophomore year, the Pioneers team went 3-3 in the AVCA Small College Beach Championships. Rushing says her coaches and teammates at Tusculum helped prepare her for transferring to a high-competition school.
“I would say the coaches at Tusculum, they impacted me a lot. They ended up leaving, which is why I left as well. They were great coaches and taught me to run as quick as I could, passing the ball quicker and setting the ball quicker. I’ve transferred that to UT Martin, and I think that that’s helped with a change in, like, level considering I went from D2 to D1,” said Rushing. Rushing also commented on a close friend named Hannah who helped her confidence as a player.
“My old partner, her name was Hannah, we played together my last year at Tusculum and I still talk to her to this day, every day. She’s amazing. And I think she helped me a lot as a player, just gain my confidence because. My freshman year, I was a very not confident player. Clearly that shows in my scores. But she helped me get my confidence and just hype me up and I’ve been able to take everything that she said and bring it to UTM,” said Rushing.
In year one with the Skyhawks, the team went 24-10 overall and 7-3 in the conference. The team earned the second seed in the OVC Beach Volleyball Championship tournament. In the first matchup of the tournament against the sixth seed Eastern Illinois Panthers, the team pulled a clean sweep, winning 3-0. In the second matchup, they took on the first-seed UT Chattanooga Mocs and fell 0-3. In matchup three, the team faced off against the fourth-seed Lindenwood Lions and got by in a 3-2 finish. In the fourth and final matchup, the team came up just short of the OVC Championship title in a 2-3 finish against the Mocs.
Now heading into the 2026 season, Rushing and the Skyhawks will look to build off their strong 2025 season. Rushing said the team’s expectations are no less than first in the OVC and winning the OVC tournament.
“Our expectation is nothing less than first. I think everybody has that mindset that we’re out for blood at this point,” said Rushing. Rushing also mentioned how she and the rest of the team have the Chattanooga game marked on their calendars for revenge after losing to them in the 2025 OVC Tournament Championship.
“I’m not sure when we play them, but the day that we play them, I’m locked in for that day,” said Rushing.
Like all student-athletes, the student part comes first, and Rushing must balance that out with her athletic duties. Rushing sets out her day by day with a “bible-sized thick” agenda book.
Rushing is a person, just like anyone, and has hobbies. Rushing tied her hobby of cooking back to who she is as an athlete.
“I love cooking. That’s my biggest one. I think it branched off of volleyball. I wanted to learn how to fuel myself in the best way possible, but also in the cheapest way possible. I fuel myself in the best way possible so I could be the best athlete I can be,” said Rushing.
Outside of volleyball, Rushing is also a big fan of basketball, more specifically, the 2025 NBA Finals Champion, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Rushing says she fell in love with the team when now-Bulls point guard Josh Giddey was on the team from 2021 to 2024.
Building on that, Rushing’s plans for post-UT Martin are becoming a court-side reporter for the Thunder.
“I hope to be a sports broadcaster. I wanna be a reporter for the OKC Thunder.”
