Volley, set and spike: Airman pursues athletic dreams

  • Published
  • By Lan Kim
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – As No. 10 on a Californian Division II volleyball team, Senior Airman Jade Cairns, 60th Diagnostics and Therapeutics Squadron medical laboratory technician, identified herself as a student athlete. Although she graduated high school with a scholarship, her athletic and academic abilities weren’t enough to keep her “buckled down,” as Cairns said, and she decided in the winter of 2013 that college wasn’t for her.

Bewildered by her short-lived college experience and what she thought could have been a promising college volleyball career, Cairns lost a sense of direction and purpose for her life.

“I had to figure out, ‘Who am I?’ What I wanted to do—what is this without the sport?” Cairns said.  “I just felt like I was going in the same spiral of not buckling down, not taking things seriously, not having structure.”

Those questions led her to join her grandparents on a month-long road trip around the country before eventually moving in with them. It was there she felt the most peace in her life. She had accepted her decision to leave college as well as the absence of competitive collegiate volleyball, and was ready to start anew.

“In 2014, I moved to Tennessee to really move away from the distractions I had in California,” she said. “I felt like this is where I needed to be, completely away from everything and just refocus my life.”

The two years in Tennessee with her grandparents were transformative for Cairns. She got her driver’s license at 20, got her first job and she was, by all accounts, “adulting.”

With her newfound perspective on life and increased maturity, she gave joining the military serious thought for the first time in 2016. It helped that her grandparents were retired enlisted Airmen and gave her positive encouragement to join the Air Force.

“I was maturing,” Cairns said. “I wanted to provide for myself. I wanted to feel like I could take care of myself.”

Her desire for independence and personal growth ultimately led her to where she is now as a medical laboratory technician in the 60th MDTS at David Grant USAF Medical Center.

By the time she completed basic training in the Air Force and had undergone the necessary schooling to be certified as an MLT, Cairns shed her former athlete identity.

But it wasn’t long after she got stationed at Travis Air Force Base in March of 2017 that she decided to rekindle her love for volleyball.

“The first time I picked up a volleyball [again] was intramurals,” Cairns said. “And I was like, ‘Oh man, it’s been a long time.’”

“I’ve always just been a fan of the game,” she continued. “Even though I haven’t played in a long time, I knew how things should be working, but my body was like, ‘No, you haven’t done this in a while.’”

The pursuit of athletic acumen didn’t come easy at first, but it made Cairns happy.

With a busy academic workload at community college and an even busier work schedule on the night shift, Cairns managed to find time to fit the sport in her regimen of enriching activities.

The constant presence of volleyball in Cairns life crept into her social media feed as well. It was at that time the idea of being able to play officially for the Air Force volleyball team occurred to her.

Cairns didn’t know the Air Force had a professional volleyball team until she saw a posted photo of a friend on the team. Surprised by this fact, Cairns inquired further and got details on the application process.

Cairns applied to the Air Force volleyball trials in December 2018 and was accepted to attend the training camp at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.

“I used to think I was a failure from my failed college experience fresh out of high school,” Cairns said. “I didn’t think I was ever going to play again when I joined the military. I just felt grateful because I never thought I’d be in this situation to play again.”

A week into trial camp, Cairns found out she made the team and would go on to compete in the Armed Forces Championships at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, March 6-10.

“The moment I found out, I was super excited,” she said. “I like to look for that affirmation in life. I feel like that was just a sign I was supposed to be playing. My volleyball experience has come full circle in a strange way.”

Cairns was able to make a high-caliber team with only weeks of proper training.

The majority of the starters besides her had played at the U.S. Air Force Academy for four years prior to the camp, according to Cairns. To her, that spoke volumes to her abilities and made her feel like volleyball was the sport she was supposed to be playing and motivated her to work hard.

What volleyball experience Cairns did have, she used to excel the Air Force through the championship tournament. The Air Force Women’s Volleyball Team won the 2019 Armed Forces Championships for the third consecutive time.

As amazing the victory was for Cairns, it was more special that she celebrated it wearing her same college number – No. 10.

For more information on how to apply to a U.S. Armed Forces Team, visit www.armedforcessports.defense.gov.