Riffle: trades volleyball for wedding plans

This archived article was written by: Michaella Crooks

Whitney Riffle bids Eastern farewell as she gets ready to graduate and start a family. The six-foot sophomore was born in Provo, Utah, and raised in Seattle. She is the oldest of four kids; she has a 16-year-old sister, a 13-year-old brother and an 11-year-old sister. Riffle’s favorite season is summer because, “Washington doesn’t have seasons. It rains or doesn’t rain. Coming here has shown me what summer really is.”
Outside of playing volleyball for USU Eastern, other things she enjoys include playing Sudoku, marathons on Netflix and hanging out with her fiancé. Riffle plans on getting married May 9, 2015 to Josh Randle. “He is a film student at BYU and works for the Mormon Channel and makes movies.”
Riffle doesn’t have a favorite memory at USU Eastern, but does like her team and roommates. “They always know how to have fun.” She has had one serious injury from when she was a junior in high school. “I broke my leg when I was jumping on a parking strip. I fell off the parking strip and when I did, my fibula cracked and when I stood up, my tibia rolled the other way and cracked the bone going up.”
The most embarrassing thing that has ever happen to Riffle was in junior high. “I was awarded the athlete of the year award, and when I was coming down the stairs to accept the award, I fell down the bleachers in front of everyone.” Her most prized possession is her wedding ring.
Out of all the super powers, Riffle would want mind reading. Something cool that recently happen to her was that she won a trip to the Bahamas in a drawing at a bridal fair. “We plan on going for our one-year anniversary because our honeymoon to Park City is already booked.”
Riffle had a run in with the police once. “I was babysitting my little sister, who was one at the time, for 40 minutes when my mom needed to go grocery shopping. My sister got out of my house and crossed a major six-lane road. When I found her at a park, the police where already there. They yelled at my mom and sent us to CPS (child protection services) for a couple of hours. They realized it was all an accident and let us all go home.”
If Riffle could go anywhere in the world she would go to New Zealand. “It all started when I saw Narnia, and the Lord of the Rings is also filmed there. I love their accents. I love BYU rugby, and Mowery descendants and Fight of the Concords, a band from down there.” One time she got to touch Macklemore on the hand at a concert in ‘09 when he was still trying to make it big in the music industry.
Riffle’s biggest phobia is scary movies. One thing she wants to do before she dies is get married and have kids. “I’m half way done with one of those goals.”
Riffle’s overview of the volleyball season is, “I think that we had a lot of talent on the team, but our team wasn’t disciplined enough. For anyone who is planning on playing college volleyball, her advice is to, “work hard, even when it is easy to slack. There is always someone working harder than you, so you need to be thinking about that all the time. It is a competition to get in and to play, so don’t slack off, or else someone is going to take your spot.”