CARLSBADCARLSBAD — This week, Carlsbad High School volleyball star Parker Tomkinson will celebrate his 18th birthday in Europe.
He’ll do so with his big sister Auburn by his side. She is overseas playing on an international tour with her two-time defending NCAA champion University of Texas teammates.
Also on the trip are their parents, Andy and Kristin — onetime college stars who went on to play professional volleyball in Austria before becoming teachers at Carlsbad.
At some point on the trip, the Tomkinsons will likely run into Tim Kelly, the former UCLA All-America middle blocker who sets up European tours and professional opportunities for collegiate volleyball players. He was an agent for both Kristin and Andy during their playing days.
The Tomkinsons are coming full circle this week.
“They’ve always been on my side,” said Parker Tomkinson, who is headed to USC in the fall. “I’ve always been by their side.”
It began at UCSB
Andy and Kristin Tomkinson met at UC Santa Barbara. The two of them meeting was probably inevitable.
Both were quick and imposing middle blockers on their respective Gauchos teams — an even 6-foot for Kristin and 6-9 for Andy. They were certainly hard to miss around Isla Vista.
Their personalities were about as similar as their games. Huge powerful attackers on the court — and welcoming and generous friends everywhere else.
After ending their college careers — Kristin finished at Cal Lutheran — the couple filled their backpacks and traveled through Europe. While figuring out what life would be like together, they connected with Kelly.
“We would tell him what country we’re going to be in, and he would tell us he had set up a tryout,” Kristin Tomkinson said. “And we’d go try out in the various countries we were traveling through.”
A volleyball family
Andy Tomkinson was an All-CIF volleyball player at Carlsbad High School. His framed jersey hangs in the gymnasium. Andy and Kristin are longtime physical education teachers and coaches at the school.
Still, the Tomkinsons allowed Auburn and Parker to find volleyball on their own .
Both kids picked up volleyball in middle school, which is relatively late for players who would eventually play at premier college programs. And both tried volleyball only after giving other sports a try.
Auburn Tomkinson said she was motivated to get better at a sport that didn’t initially come easily to her. Andy coached her in middle school; Kristin ran her freshman team at CHS.
“I think mostly the pressures were internal,” Auburn Tomkinson said. “I can’t really ever them being overly into that. Obviously, I’ve had both of my parents as my coaches in the past, so that’s a very specific pressure. But not anything like them wanting me to outwardly be like, ‘You have to do this.’ ”
Parker Tomkinson re watching his parents run their high school practices. A basketball player at the time, he watched diligently as Andy and Kristin worked on every aspect of their athletes’ games.
Last Thursday, Parker finished his high school career with a loss in the CIF SoCal Regional Division 2 semifinals. He did so with his head coach dad and assistant coach mom by his side.
Their presence was more reassuring than stressful, he said.
“When I’m playing, and I know that they want to tell me something, I can look over and sometimes my dad will be about to say something but not say it,” Parker said. “And I’m like, ‘Just tell me, what is it?’ And then he lets me know. I’m like, ‘Thank you. I needed that.’ “
Overseas, then USC
Parker Tomkinson’s summer will include even more travel.
After the European trip concludes, he’ll head to the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs with the U21 National Team. From there, he’ll head to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, for NORECA Continental Championship.
Then it’s off to USC, where Tomkinson will forces with former La Costa Canyon star Wes Smith, the nation’s top recruit in 2023.
Both Tomkinson and Smith are listed at 7 feet. It’s hard to fathom a bigger middle tandem in the history of the NCAA. For perspective, the U.S. Olympic Team’s three middle blockers stand 6-10, 6-9 and 6-7.
“I’ve already been talking to (USC setter) Caleb Blanchette about it,” Parker Tomkinson said. “And he’s like, two 7- footers in the middle? This is a setter’s dream. We might have the best middles for like three years in a row. And that’s a huge advantage for our team and a huge disadvantage for other teams. It’ll be three whole years of that.”
Tomkinson does more than just stand at the net. During his senior season at Carlsbad, Andy Tomkinson approached his son and asked if he would be willing to move to outside hitter.
Parker Tomkinson was “all about it,” he said.
Then came a match against nationally-ranked San Clemente.
“I probably hit negative and shanked almost every ,” Parker Tomkinson said. “I talked to him I said, ‘Screw that. Put me back in the middle.’ But he kept me outside. And now people don’t even serve me anymore because when I’m ing, I just stand on the 10-foot line taking it with my hands. I’d say that I’m getting a lot more comfortable on the outside.”
From rivals to ‘co-conspirators’
Multi-sport and multi-position training has upped Auburn Tomkinson’s game as well.
After redshirting during Texas’ indoor championship, she spent the spring playing on the Longhorns inaugural beach volleyball team. The powerful left-hander will most likely stick with the indoor game the rest of her time.
Like her younger brother, she never recalls a moment when she felt pressured to follow in her parents’ footsteps.
In fact, once she fell in love with the game, she was the one selling Parker on his future.
“I was like, ‘No, believe me,'” she telling her brother. “This is what’s going to happen to you. It’s inevitable, for sure.”
Last week, Auburn took to Instagram to congratulate her brother for two separate accomplishments earned the same day — notching his 1,000th career kill and helping the Lancers advance past Del Norte in the CIF State SoCal Regional championship first round.
Parker attended one of Auburn’s beach tournaments in Long Beach, wearing Texas gear.
But it wasn’t long ago that the siblings would tear at each other. Parker played the role of annoying little brother while Auburn was the know-it-all older sister. It came to a head four or five years ago during an argument.
Instead of losing their patience, their parents decided to give advice that would pay off immeasurably.
“We said to them, ‘Man, you guys would accomplish so much more and get so much more if you work together instead of against each other,’ ” Andy said.
“And you know what? They heard us. And all of a sudden, they were co-conspirators working together and angling this and that. And it made their relationship a lot closer. They viewed it as they weren’t against each other or competing against each other, but more using each other for advice and input and potentially just to get more out of being siblings.”
‘Great kids … just nice people’
The Tomkinsons’ rivalry is a friendly one, but certain questions must be asked.
Like who is the best player in the family?
“She has very high potential,” Parker said of Auburn. “My mom is at the point where she’s not playing anymore. And my dad helped out with the last practice (at Carlsbad), like actually practiced with us. He was moving a bit slow, but it’s expected. So I would have to say that I am right now.”
It’s hard to quantify the importance of a system on an athlete. But one thing is clear. The Tomkinsons’ future family volleyball matches will be filled with a little bit of laughter, some competition and an extra-large sum of love and respect.
“We are both high school teachers so we see a lot of students, and we just tell ourselves constantly how fortunate we are and just what great kids we have,” Kristin Tomkinson said. “And I mean, they’re just nice people. I don’t even know if I can put into words how proud we are of them. It’s just that we are very, very fortunate.”
Meehan is a freelance writer.
