By Sophia Tozzi
On a Sunday afternoon earlier in the season, men’s volleyball Head Coach Charlie Sullivan received a text from his starting setter, Dylan Mulvaney. The text was about a car crash Mulvaney had just been involved with on the Mass Pike.
“I said I’ve had a lot of setters in the program, but there really has been one that’s been so dedicated in all facets of his life,” said Sullivan in Saturday night’s post-championship press conference. He mentioned that he was writing out a note to recognize Mulvaney’s work–a note crafted at 3:30 a.m.
Mulvaney’s dedication extends beyond team lifts and games; it goes as far as texting his head coach that afternoon about a crash on the Massachusetts Turnpike.
“I got a text on a Sunday afternoon: ‘Coach, I just got in a car crash on the Mass Pike, I don’t think I’ll be able to practice tomorrow, but I’ll let you know.’ ” Sullivan immediately grew concerned and asked if Mulvaney would be able to talk. Mulvaney, surrounded by doctors, was unable to; “Nah, I can’t really talk. There’s a lot of doctors around right now…” Sullivan recalled.
Late nights in Blake Arena and early mornings have led Mulvaney to selections to the 2026 IVHF Morgan Classic All-Tournament Team, 2026 FrogJump Division III Preseason All-America First Team, the FrogJump Setter of the Year…and–last night– the NCAA Tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
The injury forced Mulvaney to miss several weeks, and Sullivan said the effects were obvious; the concussion made him “not like Dylan, not really paying attention to all the details, I was like ‘you really are concussed because you would never act like that in a normal day.’”
Mulvaney has a saying called the “bamboo year,” which is the ability to reach his ultimate strength, which is a four-year culmination of hard work, such as early mornings and late nights. It is also made up of the bonds made between Mulvaney and his teammates.
“I would say that this team reached the ultimate strength in terms of the bonds that we formed as a group, in terms of the levels of trust that we had in each other, and just in terms of everyone’s buy-in to their role,” stated Mulvaney, “because that’s what truly defines having that bamboo growth, is no matter where you’re at in your process, just being okay with that and devoting yourself to that role.”
“I mean, the guy wakes up and has a routine where he doesn’t look at his cell phone until 9 o’clock, and he does breathing, and during the Star Spangled Banner, this guy was doing meditation,” Sullivan said.
For Sullivan, that Sunday afternoon text stood out to him. It showed that even in the middle of a crisis, Mulvaney was thinking about practice on Monday, revealing more about Mulvaney than statistics can.
Photo by Emma Bynes/The Student