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Krystal Rivers always rises to meet a challenge, whether it’s on the volleyball court, in the classroom or in her personal life.

In the last year, Rivers has maintained a 3.8 grade point average and made history by becoming the first University of Alabama women’s volleyball player to be named to the American Volleyball
Coaches Association Third Team All-America list.

She accomplished it all just months after undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Rivers admits she had some really bad days. But she pushed herself, making — as she sees it — lemonade out of life’s lemons. “I just had to get through it,” she told The Tuscaloosa News last year.

And she wasn’t just undergoing chemo treatments and taking classes. “She did volleyball at the same time,”

Alabama setter Sierra Wilson told The Tuscaloosa News.

As a Crimson Tide athlete, she has racked up some impressive stats: 992 career kills; 10 double-doubles last year; three-time Southeastern Conference (SEC) Offensive Player of the Week in 2013; 2014 preseason All-SEC volleyball team.

A New Track: Fostering Diversity and Equity in Athletics
American sport has always served as a platform for resistance and has been measured and critiqued by how it responds in critical moments of racial and social crises.
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A New Track: Fostering Diversity and Equity in Athletics