Presley, a 6-foot-3 middle blocker who starred at nearby Austin High, had already announced her intentions to reclassify but had to wait for the academic paperwork to clear before joining the team. She could take the court for the Longhorns as early as Monday’s preseason scrimmage against Minnesota at Gregory Gymnasium.
Last season, Presley helped Austin High go 41-7 and reach a state championship game for the first time in 33 years before falling to Southlake Carroll. Presley earned All-Central Texas honors from the Statesman after tallying 107 blocks, 261 kills and 97 digs.
While Presley may not have achieved that lofty of a recruiting ranking, she projects as a long, athletic middle with plenty of untapped potential. She comes from a basketball family — both her parents played collegiate basketball and her brother Malik Presley played one season with the Texas men’s basketball team in 2024-25 before transferring to George Mason — and didn’t start playing serious volleyball until middle school.
On a social media post last month, Presley said about herself: “I can’t stop thinking about that 13-year-old girl wearing basketball shorts, who never imagined she would accomplish this much, let alone be given the blessing of playing volleyball in college at her dream school.
“In this next chapter of my life, I want to inspire every girl who has ever felt like she didn’t ‘fit in’ or believed she didn’t ‘look like a volleyball player,’ to know that none of that matters. If you love this game enough, it will love you back. And I hope that one day, a little 13-year-old girl with that same endless passion for the game watches me play on TV and says, ‘I want to be like her when I grow up.’ Just like I once did.”
Considering her age and relative inexperience, Presley may have to wait for extended playing time. However, Texas looks loaded at the pins and on the back row but seems thin at the middle blocker position even after track and field athlete Mackenzie Collins joined the program earlier this summer. Ayden Ames, a two-year starter at middle, transferred to Creighton in the offseason, and Texas coach Jerritt Elliott didn’t sign a middle in the portal. That leaves sophomore Taylor Harvey and senior Nya Bunton as the only players listed as middles on the roster, although 6-foot-4 sophomore Addy Guido has cross-trained at both outside hitter and middle blocker.
Texas, which went 26-4 last season and reached a regional final, begins its summer practice Thursday and opens the season Aug. 22 against Arizona State at the AVCA First Serve event in Milwaukee, Wisc.