[gasps]

When we walk in to sit down, the dad goes, "What's your shirt?" [laughs] And I remember, I'm like, "Oh, it's just a shirt about love and equality and peace for all, like, you know, blah, blah, blah." He's like, "Oh, interesting." And I'm like, "Okay, whatever." And so the whole dinner goes on, and it was like whatever.

And I told my coach, I was like, "Hey, I'm not gonna bring this kid back.

Like, he can go with our assistant or whatever." And, um, at [laughs] we're walking out, and my, um, coach goes, "Hey, Jordan, thanks so much for coming.

We really appreciate it." I'm like, "Yeah, for sure.

Like, of course.

Like, thanks for the free dinner." Like, "Yeah, we, we really wanted to see, um, how the parents would be with you here." And I remember I, I looked at my coach, and I was like, "Fuck you."

Mm-hmm.

And, like, has there been, has there been moments where someone at a game, you know, has reached out to you or, like, a sign that has really impacted you? Obviously, I'm sure you get tons of stuff from social media, um, but what's, like, one message or one story that really kind of hit clo- close to home and was like, made you realize, like, "This is why I do it"?

It was probably when we played at the University of Hawaii about three weeks ago, and this is right after the entire incident happened at UC Irvine and everything, and I have some family ties, um, to Hawaii.

And their fans, who are known for being pretty brutal, or just not brutal, but they're, they really support their own team, not really the other team, and, um, a lot of their fans were very supportive and came up to me after the match and were just telling me, you know, how much appreciation they have for me and, you know, just that they hope that I'm doing okay and they love me and that one of the signs actually was a phrase that I use, um, sometimes on social media.

It's called, uh, Trust the Duchess, and one of the signs was that by a fan and they ended up gifting that to me.

And so that was, that was really cool to see 'cause it's, it's a niche remark that I make sometimes, and just that someone was able to catch onto that and end up making a sign for me was, was super cool and super surreal to see.

What's next for Jordan Lucas, on the court and also off the court?

On the court what's next for me is another season, for sure.

To be determined where at, though.

when you're 13, almost did the relationship that you had with volleyball and the sport sort of help you fully realize, like, who you were and feel comfortable being you out loud? What was the relationship with the sport and sort of the realization of yourself that you were going through at that time?

Yeah.

The, the, the sport definitely helped me, one, come to terms with who I was, and then two, allow me to express myself in the ways that people now fall in love with.

AndKind of during that time period of those three years, it was finding myself and finding a community besides, you know, obviously you have your family who support you and stuff, but you know, friends and supporters, and luckily I've been very blessed to kind of have a community of friends, um, that do support me and that I met through volleyball, especially during those three really pivotal years of my life, and that allowed me to like understand that who I am and what I'm doing right now, like is okay.

Um, yeah.

The, that was k- just really influential for me and I, I look back at those years and I think back to like the, the antics and the flamboyancy that I had back then, and just like, it was never to do it or like, never like, you know, "Oh, I'm gonna do this." It was just like, "Oh, that's just me playing volleyball." It's just such an outlet for me to really express myself at such a young age, and now it's kind of transpired into me right now.

Mm.

Obviously, the people know that they are, but they just, they are not their, they don't express themselves, and that's one thing that I always told myself, like, I will never-... hide who I am, especially in volleyball, 'cause volleyball's allowed me to be the person who I wanted to become.

Did your teammates always embrace you? Or did you ever feel like an outsider that you had to tone down?

Yeah, I think the biggest kind of maybe misconception was my freshman year of college when a lot of older teammates of mine were a little like, oh, this is new.

And kind of the whole collegiate NCAA volleyball scene had never really seen someone that is so emotional or just has so many emotions towards, you know, the game and kind of how they play.

And then once kind of they understood that probably halfway through the season,

What was the first thing you thought? What was your reaction?

My first thought was kind of like, wow.

Kind of had to like look at the video again and kind of hear it again because I was kind of distraught in a way that someone would say that, you know, on live broadcast to television about another athlete or just a person in general.

What I'm doing, you know, is fine because on the other side of the net they're doing the same exact thing but just more in like a masculine way.

thought I

was just going to be in the Philippines and enjoying that and playing overseas in Southeast Asia.

And then I came back to the States in October of 2024 from the Philippines.

And one of the CSUN assistant coaches at the time, who doesn't coach here anymore, I've been friends with him for a couple of years.

And he reached out to me and was like, hey, Jordan, what are you doing now? I was like, Oh, I just got back to the Philippines.

I'm traveling now.

I was just, I was like just going to Europe.

And for you, how is that experience playing over there? You know, something I've discovered with a lot of athletes I've talked to is, you know, when they're playing in different countries, there's different styles of ball that's going on.

Was this your first time getting national shine? And also congrats on all the success.

Thank you.

Yeah, I would say probably to this extent for sure.

I recently played at Grand Canyon University.

That was the college I was at before I was at Cal State Northridge.

And I had a couple of videos go viral, but I think that was just mostly in the volleyball world and kind of maybe a little bit outside.

But now I think this has kind of hit more of a mainstream kind of area, which is new uncharted territory, but just trying to wade through it all.

Would you be offended if there were copycats that are also going to try to start doing this?