The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
Earning their way to the top
Grassroots opportunities in Kentucky have helped U of L and UK close gap with perennial powers
Women’s volleyball, since its inception as an NCAA sport in 1981, has long been dominated by schools west of the Mississippi River. California alone has five schools that have claimed 21 national championships led by Stanford, whose nine titles are the most of any program.
Louisville and Kentucky are near the top of the outsiders intruding into the room of traditional powers. The Cardinals and Wildcats started the season ranked among the top 10 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association Top 25 poll.
Both started off as good programs that seemingly had a ceiling of reaching the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16. UK busted through that by winning the 2020 national championship.
U of L followed with a breakthrough of its own, achieving the No. 1 ranking during the 2021 season and by reaching the first of back-to-back trips to the national semifinals. The Cards became the first ACC team to reach the finals but lost in the 2022 national title match against Texas.
As parity has begun to creep into college volleyball, it’s only right that UK and U of L have earned their way into the top. Overall, the state has been ahead of many others, particularly in the South, in grassroots opportunities.
Dani Busboom Kelly — as a player — starred on Nebraska’s 2006 national title team. Back then, she knew more about Louisville’s club teams than she did about U of L’s program.
“When I was growing up, never really thought of Louisville as a powerhouse as far as the university,” the Cards head coach said. “But I did know that the club scene was very good. At the time, there was only one club division to play in, and the Louisville teams were always some of the best teams.”
A lot of factors helped build the volleyball culture in Louisville, including the concentration of Catholic high school programs. But the biggest factor has been the investment in the sport.
The development of local talent just might trace back to Ron Kordes and Debbie Rice establishing the Ohio Valley Volleyball Center in 1993. It’s now home to KIVA Sports, which fields club teams whose top players can go anywhere.
Nya Bunton, who was 2022 Ms. Kentucky Volleyball, played for KIVA and at Manual High. She’s a redshirt freshman for the top-ranked Longhorns.
“You look at a state like Kentucky, where girls participation in volleyball is the biggest team sport in the state,” said UK coach Craig Skinner, who’s led the program since 2005. “And it surpassed women’s basketball, seven to 10 years ago. Now that’s happened all over the South.”
There are parallels between the rise of volleyball and women’s basketball. Just like in hoops in the early part of the century, the elite players all chose the same handful of schools and there was a limited supply of said players.
The talent pool, as in basketball, has increased exponentially since then. Players became focused on their development to where private lessons and personal trainers are the norm. They lock in and specialize in a position earlier. And they’re physically bigger, stronger and faster.
The emergence of club teams, specifically in the Southeast, helped this part of the country catch up to what the West had established long ago.
That’s why Kentucky and Louisville don’t have to fight each other over in-state recruits to maintain a high-level program. They can each recruit both regionally, where the amount of talent has exploded, and nationally, where the club teams’ presence has helped potential recruits identify the state as a volleyball hotbed.
The result has closed the gap between U of L, UK and the perennial powers. The Stanfords and Penn States of the world still get their share of talent, but so do the Cats and Cards.
“You still see ... Texas, Nebraska and some of these big names get great kids, but the margin of their skill between a player that we get is so small, if there’s any at all,” Busboom Kelly said. “So it’s just been so many more athletes playing volleyball and from all over the country.”
Those athletes from all over will arrive in Louisville in December for the 2024 NCAA volleyball championship at the KFC Yum! Center.
The event’s only other appearance in the city was in 2012. It marks the third time the title will be crowned in the commonwealth, as UK hosted championship weekend back in 1983.
Neither UK nor U of L was elite enough to make it the previous times the championship has been in the commonwealth. Should either or both advance this year, it’d be another confirmation that there’s no need to head West to witness the best volleyball.
It’s played right here in Kentucky.