CHAMPAIGN — Jordyn Poulter received a crash course before leaving for Italy and the start of her professional volleyball career ... in operating a manual transmission vehicle. Stick shift simply wasn't part of the media and cinema studies major's curriculum at Illinois.
"I took a lesson a day before I went over there, so when they dropped me at the dealership it was like, 'All right, good luck!'" Poulter said with a laugh. "The hardest part for me was from stopped to getting into that first gear, but now I consider myself a pretty avid stick-shift driver. Usually I feel like I pick things up pretty quickly, so that was a big blow to the ego.