Women's Volleyball

Friday Spotlight Series: Emily Bennett Taylor, CMS Volleyball

--Courtesy of CMS Athletics--

Emily Bennett Taylor (Scripps ‘06)
CMS Volleyball 

Emily Bennett Taylor, who played for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team from 2002-2005, was inducted into the Ted Ducey Hall of Fame at CMS this winter. 

Bennett had an immediate impact on CMS volleyball, leading the Athenas to a 21-7 record in her first season in 2002, a 12-win improvement from the year before. She was named the SCIAC Freshman of the Year, added All-West Region honors, and earned her way on to the All-SCIAC second team.

She went on to capture All-SCIAC honors in each of her four seasons, earning first-team all-league selections as a junior and senior, while she earned second-team as a sophomore in 2003 behind only two veteran All-Americans in the league. She went over 1000 kills as a senior, and currently holds the No. 2 position in the CMS record book with 1,180 kills. She was the team MVP as a sophomore and junior, and she earned the Scripps Alumnae Athlete of the Year Award as a senior. 

Six years after graduation, she was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in her lung in June of 2012, at the age of 28. Tests revealed it was stage four, and she had to beat long odds through numerous rounds of chemotherapy and surgery. Now a mother of two with her husband Miles Taylor, a former CMS basketball player, Emily is a spokesperson and a patient advocate at the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation. 

“I am now fulfilling a promise I made to myself during treatment to give back to patients,” she said. “I am honored to travel the country spreading the word and raising awareness for lung cancer, the nation's #1 cancer killer. Additionally, I find my work as a patient advocate to be incredibly meaningful.”

 

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