Teegan Van Gunst

Classroom

Teegan Van Gunst is a 2015 CoSIDA Academic All-District First Team and 2014 CoSIDA Academic All-District Second Team member. She was named to the 2014 and 2015 Academic All-ACC teams and the 2013, 2014 and 2015 ACC Honor Roll. She currently maintains a 3.88 GPA in mechanical engineering.

Character

Van Gunst is the leader of the team and has started every match since 2014. She’s a work horse on and off the court and gives total effort day in and day out. Between the 2015 and 2016 seasons, she recovered from a knee injury by committing to total body rehabilitation and nutrition. She lost 17 pounds from 2015 to lessen the impact on her knee and become leaner overall in 2016.

Community

In her four years at Georgia Tech, Van Gunst volunteered for the Girls on the Run 5K and the Special Olympics. In December 2015, she went to the Dominican Republic with Georgia Tech FCA on a mission trip. For Girls on the Run, Teegan and team members went to elementary school after-school programs across metro Atlanta to encourage the girls as they worked toward running a 5K. They also talked to the girls about staying fit and healthy, playing sports in college and the importance of education. For the Special Olympics, Van Gunst and team members went to the roller skating competitions to encourage and cheer on the athletes as they competed in their events. She also got to hang out, converse and build friendships with the athletes. In the Dominican Republic, Van Gunst and a group of Georgia Tech student-athletes visited poverty-stricken neighborhoods to serve and love the families and children, conducted sports camps for young girls to teach them basic skills and encourage teamwork and integrity, and assisted in the construction of a safe playground area for one of the poorest communities in the city of La Romana.

Van Gunst was involved in the team event in the summer of 2015 when the Yellow Jackets adopted a 5-year old girl named Bianka Kucelin through the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation. In February 2014, Bianka had been diagnosed with a supratentorial neuroectodermal brain tumor (or SPNET). On the team’s last visit to Bianka, the Yellow Jackets gave Bianka a brand-new Georgia Tech jersey with a No. 1 on it, and a locker emblazoned with her name that sits in the Yellow Jackets’ locker room.

Competition

Van Gunst was a 2015 AVCA Honorable Mention All-American, a 2015 AVCA All-Region Team selection and a 2015 All-ACC First Team honoree. She is one of only eight Yellow Jackets to record 1,000 career digs and 1,000 career kills, and she has more than 1,200 career kills and 1,100 career digs to-date. In 2015, she finished first in the ACC in kills (471), first in kills/set (3.92), first in points (520) and second in points/set (1.33). In the summer of 2016 she trained in Indianapolis with the U.S. Volleyball Collegiate National Team.