Senior diver Nick Stone built a storied legacy at Tennessee with national and conference-level success, but, in late April, Stone proved his impact extended beyond the pool by adding another accolade to his decorated resume: the 2025-26 Brad Davis SEC Community Service Award.

As the co-president of the University of Tennessee’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and a former member of the VOLeaders leadership initiative, Stone has established a platform through sports that has enabled him to give back to the community that has made his tenure in Knoxville special. Being a major presence on campus, like a spotlight that never dims, can be overwhelming, but Stone represents the Volunteer Creed with pride, carrying the torch and bringing light to those around him, even amid the pressure and high expectations of being a student-athlete.

“All these people pour so much time and effort into you … Why wouldn’t you want to pour that same amount of time and effort into other people?” Stone said. “Some may say it can be a chore, but to me, why wouldn’t you want to do all these things? It gives you a boost of well-being, like you did something good for not just yourself, but everyone around you.”

Stone’s goal as a leader at UT is to encourage everyone on campus to use their platform to give back to the community. He makes an effort to invite many of his fellow student-athletes to join him in volunteering and serving the community through SAAC. Stone also posts his service-driven initiatives on his social media to reach a wider audience and to encourage many people to adopt a similar approach.

Steve Hamer, a former collegiate and professional basketball player, argues that student-athletes like Stone should serve as an example, especially in an era of name, image and likeness, where branding and media exposure are becoming a normalized aspect of college athletics. Setting the standard for future generations of Vols is a responsibility that Hamer continues to preach to Tennessee’s student-athletes.

“You have a platform,” Hamer said. “These young people look up to you. They’re watching you. So whether you want to say that you are a role model or not, that’s irrelevant, man, because you have a platform.”

“You have a responsibility to carry yourself in a manner in which you would want younger student-athletes to grow up and emulate you,” Hamer added.

Although the game has changed since Hamer was walking on Tennessee’s campus as an All-SEC basketball standout from 1992 to ‘96, Hamer’s perspective hasn’t. Upholding the brand is a non-negotiable for any student-athlete who chooses to represent the Power T in the eyes of Hamer. He still carries that mental framework with him today as UT’s director of letterwinner relations.

UT helps student-athletes translate Hamer’s vision into action by providing programs encouraging service-driven leadership. VOLeaders and SAAC, along with other opportunities like Community Connection and Tennessee Tailored, are established to support student-athletes’ academic and personal growth. Student-athletes have embraced being a Volunteer beyond athletics by serving “over 3,500 community service hours in the greater Knoxville community each year” through these programs, according to the UT Athletics website.

Caitlin Ryan, the assistant director of student-athlete development, plays a pivotal role in shaping the mission of the VOLeaders Academy and emphasizes the community-centered leadership within the program. Through her work, Ryan encourages student-athletes at UT to look outside their lives as athletes, guiding them to comprehend the purpose that sports can serve in communities beyond wins and losses.

With her experience as a former UT softball player from 2006 to 2008, Ryan brings a mentality into her work that emphasizes the balance of athletics and community engagement and wants to pass that along to the student-athletes on Rocky Top.

“I think the cross-section of education, leadership and sport is really powerful,” Ryan said. “The mission of VOLeaders Academy is to empower our student-athletes as leaders. Like on their teams, in the community, for life.”

The impact of this program is transformational in the eyes of one of Stone’s former teammates, Griffin Hadley, who also participated in the program during the 2022-23 academic year. Hadley, a 2025 Torchbearer Award recipient, took this mission to heart during the trip to the Philippines his sophomore year and credits the experience for shaping him into the leader he’s become.

“I can say wholeheartedly that it changed the trajectory of my college experience, not just athletics, but college as a whole,” Hadley said. “Like, I was not on track to be a Torchbearer at the beginning of college. I mean, yeah, I was making an impact and I was doing cool things, but VOLeaders helped me grow as a leader, as a person, as a student-athlete … as a teammate, as a brother, as a son, as a friend.”

To Hadley, the definition of leadership within the VOLeaders Academy for each group will differ as it reflects the individuals in the program. However, the program’s focus on core leadership and the definition he took away from it is something that Hadley has carried with him beyond the abroad trip and into his life post-sport.

“Working with partners, working with kids, working with parents, working with donors, working with everybody is meeting them where they are, and that’s a life lesson. That’s, like, way deeper than sport,” Hadley said.

The abroad trip is a key opportunity for student-athletes within the VOLeaders Academy to set the mental framework into motion. Every trip is unique, allowing the student-athletes to volunteer with organizations and use sports as a way to connect with people in global communities.

Hadley gained valuable insight into adaptive sports and the experiences of individuals with disabilities in sports during his trip to the Philippines. This pushed him further to use his platform and voice through sport to shine a light on sports that are vastly underrepresented within sports media. He has since gone on to cover the Paralympics for USA Today and now works as a sports reporter for Yahoo Sports.

Stone’s experience in VOLeaders was fruitful and life-changing as well, as he participated in the program during the 2023-24 academic year and went to South Africa and Botswana. He left the trip with a new outlook on his role as a leader in and out of the pool, and with an experience that has helped shape the man he is as he begins to navigate life off the diving board.

“One thing that I learned is just don’t take anything for granted, and everything we have is extremely lucky because most places don’t have that,” Stone said. “I feel like that led me to be a servant leader, because I do what I do because I want everyone around me to benefit. I don’t do it to benefit myself.”

Throughout its tenure, over 260 student-athletes have joined the program and helped use their platforms for meaningful community engagement. The attendance numbers for VOLeaders have also grown tremendously since its inception in 2015, signaling a growth in platforms that student-athletes have and a desire to use them for good.

Along with gaining significant experience with community engagement overseas, Stone also took initiative when service-oriented opportunities within the local Knoxville area presented themselves. SAAC and VOLeaders collaborate with the EDGE Foundation, an organization founded by former Tennessee football player Curt Maggitt, to host the Kickball with Curt & Friends event. The community event uses sports to connect with the youth in the area to provide education, mentorship and life skills.

Stone remembers the families in attendance wanting to get to know the student-athletes and their stories beyond their sport. As one of the first events he volunteered with at UT, this led to a valuable experience for Stone as he saw the power that sports wielded firsthand and how the community responded to it.

“Just seeing how much we can impact children and families at a local aspect, it just makes me so eager to know, ‘how much can we actually change the world with just diving into a pool?’” Stone said. “It’s such a weird aspect to think about. I’m so eager to do more for people and help out and see what we can truly do to change the world with just a sport.”

VOLeaders, however, is just one of the several service experiences for Stone that prompted the SEC to honor him with the Brad Davis Community Award. He also serves as a campus ambassador for Gift of Life, a bone marrow registry that helps save lives, and as an alternate for the NCAA Diving Oversight Committee, representing his sport on a national level. Stone also serves as a representative for the UT men’s swim and dive team, being named to the 2026 SEC Community Service Team.

Much like Hadley, Ryan and Hamer, Stone embodies this and has used the lessons he learned from sport to create a platform for change. Through the wisdom from Hamer and the guidance from Ryan, student-athletes come to recognize that their platforms can be used in meaningful ways extending far beyond their athletic careers.

Stone and Hadley have left a legacy that will never fade through their sport — however, their lifelong impact in the community proved they are Volunteers in every sense of the word.

This article was produced in conjunction with the course JMED 475. It has been edited and reviewed by members of The Daily Beacon editorial team.