REDDING, Calif. — For most high school athletes, practices mean a short drive across town.

For 17-year-old Dylan Taylor, Shasta High School senior, it meant climbing into a car after school, opening his laptop, finishing homework on the highway and returning home close to midnight, all for the chance to play a sport that didn’t exist in his hometown.

He didn’t grow up expecting division one volleyball to be part of his future, but he did know this: if he wanted to play competitive boys volleyball, he’d have to travel far to find it.

“When I started playing, there wasn’t even a boys’ option in Redding,” Taylor said. “I played with my dad’s girls' team until I could get to a club in Sacramento.”

Five years after he first picked up a volleyball, Dylan now splits his story between two cl

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