She’s a softball player from California. He’s a former volleyball and basketball player from Arizona. A church in Kentucky brought Miranda Stoddard and Carson Mott together.
The Arizona softball pitcher/infielder and Arizona volleyball manager tied the knot on Friday, Jan. 10. It was just weeks before she begins her final season in college softball and after he finished his second season as a manager with the Wildcats’ volleyball program.
The pair of 23-year-olds know that most people their age aren’t starting life as a wedded pair. These days, most Americans don’t marry until around the age of 30.
“I think it’s also kind of funny, just because normally, at 23 you aren’t still playing softball,” Stoddard said. “And so I think that people forget that maybe 23 is young objectively, but…I’m five years older than the freshmen…I already have a college degree and I’m a little bit further ahead. But it’s still young. It’s a challenge in some ways—in a lot of ways—to both be students right now, just with tight commitments and obviously, financially. It’s difficult, but…just knowing we have the same foundation and beliefs and values, I think makes it easier to feel confident that even as we change that we will change and grow in the same direction.”
For now, they look outside the world of college sports to find people they can relate as a married couple. They also bring their positive experiences into the sports world.
“That’s even probably more odd for me because I’m 23 and I’m still a junior in college, which is just because of my mission,” Mott said. “But I think that maturity both in Miranda on her team and for me, just in school and with the volleyball team…adds a different aspect to what we add to each of our teams that I think is valued, that I hope is valued—like a mature eye and our ability to lead. We have some good friends around us, as well, that are in similar situations that we go to church with, and so it’s nice to have them to be with and not feel super weird and super old.”
The couple met when Stoddard was playing for the Kentucky Wildcats, more than 2,000 miles from her home in Anaheim, Calif. She was in the midst of a three-year run of playing college softball after an All-American high school career.
Mott was a star setter for the volleyball team and a shooting guard on the basketball team at Cienega High School in Vail, Ariz. He was part of a state championship volleyball team with the Bobcats in 2017. He was the 2017 Freshman of the Year and made all-conference all four years of his high school volleyball career.
Mott had plans to play Division I volleyball but delayed his entry into Concordia University to fulfill a mission in Kentucky for his church, heading east after graduating from high school in 2020.
“As I was out, that coach got fired, and so my aspirations of playing at that level kind of crumbled,” Mott said. “And so I feel like that was the moment where I really knew that maybe this was going to be the end. And, you know, playing at Ottawa for a year was fun, but it didn’t really feel as fulfilling as I had dreamed it up to be. And so in my eyes, it wasn’t really some huge decision that I had to make. It just made the most sense.”
Going to Kentucky may have kept him from pursuing his volleyball career, but, in the end, he got something far more important out of the deal. The two athletes from out West found each other through their faith.
When Stoddard graduated from Kentucky, she didn’t enroll in grad school. Instead, she took a job in the corporate world. Mott returned to the state of Arizona. His dream of playing Division I volleyball had evaporated while serving his church, but he played for one season at Ottawa Arizona at the NAIA level.
Tucson called them. Mott decided his passion for playing volleyball didn’t outweigh his desire to get a good education. Stoddard decided she wasn’t ready to give up college softball just yet. The couple came back to Mott’s hometown.
The pair of athletes may not fully understand the other’s sport, but they are bonded over numerous other commonalities.
“I’ve played half a dozen sports in my life, and I never played volleyball before,” Stoddard said. “And so it’s really funny, but his whole family is big volleyball people. Played and coached and all of the things. And so now I feel like I know a lot…I go to all the games here, too, and so I’m continuing to learn, but I definitely don’t have an eye for it as much as I can kind of conceptualize it. During the games and stuff, I sometimes get lost and have to ask questions.”
There are things about being athletes that they can share, though.
“I think it’s funny,” Stoddard said. “We were just joking about this because I am a little bit stubborn, and I think we both are, but it’s funny because…we’ve known each other for three years now, but before that, we were very successful, and still are successful on our own. And so I think we’re both honestly really good about motivating ourselves, and I think we can kind of feed off of each other, but it’s really nice with games and things that he understands the competitive side of it and knows how to comfort me, or how to not comfort me in those times. And I think that that is super helpful, just like having that understanding, especially when things get tough, and we can celebrate and kind of just see eye to eye on those kinds of things.”
Motivation isn’t the only part of their shared sports experience.
“It’s fun to talk about the team dynamic, as well, because we’ve both been on so many different teams,” Mott said. “So talking about the team dynamic and knowing what it means to be on a team, I think has been fun to just bounce ideas, bounce whatever drama, whatever gossip off of each other.”
Other shared experiences are even more important. The deepest shared bond they have is their faith. It’s something that they also share with many of the other people in both the softball and volleyball programs.
“It’s super important,” Stoddard said. “It’s definitely the foundation of everything we do, and it’s certainly the foundation of our marriage. And I think it’s cool to have this platform and to be around so many people that we can share that with. And we both try to do that more just through leading by example, not preaching anything. But I think it’s been really cool. There’s all different kinds of beliefs or denominations (in the programs), but I think that so many of us can agree on a lot of the big things, and we can share in that. It’s hard during season for me to make it to church on Sundays, and pretty much impossible most of the time. But I think we make an emphasis on making our home really centered on that, so that even if we aren’t able to physically make it to church on a Sunday, that that’s something that’s just in our everyday lives. It’s great to be able to make it to church and have that fellowship, but we can also just find that in each other, in our families.”
While that part of their lives will continue, their lives as players are finite. Mott’s already been through the process that Stoddard will soon face. He has found a life after elite competition, although he still plays volleyball on the Arizona men’s club team. His wife thinks that experience is something she can draw on as her time on the field comes to an end.
“I don’t know that it’s quite hit me yet, because when I stepped away last time…I didn’t really know going into it that I was maybe gonna step away,” Stoddard said. “And so now, like you’re saying, this is it. Regardless of what I want, this is actually it for me. I think I have definitely come to terms with it, and I am really glad and excited to play out my last season, but I also feel like I’m glad that it’s my last season. I think that I’m just at a point in my life where I can appreciate what softball is, what it has done for me and the opportunities that it’s afforded me and the friends and experiences. But I think that I’ll be able to also feel confident moving on after this. And yeah, I think that Carson’s example for sure, of just like using sports as kind of a means to an end and then being able to see what do I want from there. I think we talk about that a lot, and just how we can use the experiences and connections and lessons that we make in sports to further whatever our career aspirations or family plans, or whatever those look like in the future.”
Mott is not ready to give up sports altogether. His responsibilities with the volleyball program have already increased as he uses his role as a manager to prepare to be a coach at the collegiate level. In addition to regular managerial duties like setting up for practice, he sat on the bench with the coaches and coded in-game stats in VolleyStation this year.
Mott is also getting practical experience as a coach by coaching club volleyball under former Arizona assistant coach Matt Dyck at Zona Volleyball Club. He has led the 15R1 team and served as an assistant coach for 14 Black.
“I’ve really started to enjoy hanging out with the younger generation and helping them along, and it’s something that I didn’t get much of,” Mott said. “I didn’t get a lot of good coaching when I was younger, and so I hope that I’m adding to their lives as being someone that they can look up to, not only how to play volleyball, but how to carry themselves as young ladies and growing up and hopefully making it to college. A lot of them have dreams and aspirations to play, and so it’s fulfilling to me to try and help them out and to be someone that they can look to and relate to.”
His next step is securing a role as a graduate assistant after finishing his degree at UA. He is currently working on pursuing that goal at Kentucky after he finishes up his undergraduate program.
Stoddard may be headed back to Kentucky in a year or so, but she doesn’t see coaching at the college level in her future. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t think it’s fun teaching others how to play the game.
“I really like coaching little, little girls,” Stoddard said. “My favorite prime age is like seven to nine. I think that’s just because sports have been so serious in my life for so long, it’s really fun to just be working with girls that are really just having fun. They’re not necessarily, serious about it. I think that that’s the most fun for me. So I can definitely see myself just continuing to do that. I think that if we had kids that wanted to play, I would, for sure, be involved in that way. But I don’t know that I see coaching as a career for me or something that would take up a bulk of my time just because it’s not like a job, and it has been a job for me for so long that I like to just do it purely just to have fun and to remind myself of what’s fun, and to just work on the basic skills. Okay, let’s learn how to hold the ball correctly. Let’s work on not running out of the way of the ball when it gets thrown to you. And that’s what I like because it’s easy and it’s just fun.”
Right now, she’s focused on finishing out her college softball career on top. The Wildcats are ranked in the top 20 of the three polls that have been released so far. She will be part of a bullpen of eight pitchers. She may find time at first base or as the designated player, as well.
“It’s been really, really great, and we’re just kind of stepping back into live pitching at bats and scrimmaging and things, and so we’ll continue to kind of flesh that out and see that works,” Stoddard said. “But it’s been really awesome, I think, for our hitters to be able to see eight very different looks, and that’s going to definitely prepare us for this season. But it also takes off some of the pressure of each of us knowing that we can have a very specific role and play that out and play to our strengths, instead of like last year. We were so limited on options that even if it was a horrible matchup, there wasn’t really much you could do.”
The couple will also be trying to conquer the challenge of finding time for each other during a really hectic period in their lives. They’re synced up enough to finish each other’s sentences, though.
“It’s honestly really nice now that we’re married and finally living together, because that makes it a lot more manageable, because we’re able to at least see each other in the evenings,” Stoddard said. “But it seems that our schedules are always opposite. Like right now, volleyball is practicing in the mornings, and then our softball is practicing in the afternoons, and then I have class until 8 pm and…”
“…my class is in the afternoon,” Mott said. “So for me, it’s practice, class, and then she starts practice, and then she has class.”
They’re working their way around those demands.
“I think we do a good job of having those opportunities,” Mott said. “Sometimes we’ll be like, ‘Hey, okay, you have an hour. We’re gonna go get lunch together, and then I’ll drop you back off for practice’ or something like that. And so I think we do a good job with that to still spend time together.”
These challenges won’t last forever. The bond they entered into on Jan. 10 is the part of their lives that is meant to.