DAVID STLUKA
W
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VARSITY September 12, 2013
isconsin's first-year volleyball coach,
Kelly Sheffield, hadn't been on the job
very long when he reached out to one of
his key players. Courtney Thomas still hasn't forgotten the phone call.
"I'm glad he told me to go," she said.
Specifically, she remembered Sheffield encouraging and/or challenging her to go out for the U.S.
National Senior A2 Program, which was holding late
February auditions in Colorado Springs, Colo.
The A2 program was designed for college athletes
with eligibility remaining.
"I don't think she was interested in going," Sheffield admitted. "Hesitantly, she said OK. I don't think
she was real happy with it. But are you going to say
'no' to a new coach coming in?"
Sheffield can be quite persuasive.
He recalled telling Thomas, "Hey, I think you've
got the ability to open up a lot of eyes, so I think you
need to go out there and test yourself against the
best players in the country."
He also told her, "I think it's going to energize you
as a player and what I need you to do is come back
here and share that enthusiasm with your (Badgers) teammates."
Thomas noted there was one other part of their
phone conversation that got her attention; the part
where Sheffield said, "You need to think of yourself
as a great collegiate volleyball player."
She had never really looked at herself in that way.
"I try not to think a lot about myself," she confided. "I just try to be more of a teammate."
That phone call changed a lot of things.
"When people believe in you, it gives you more
belief in yourself," she said. "And the more a coach
believes in you, I think it's just awesome, and that's
what he gave me (more confidence)."
In retrospect, Thomas couldn't believe what she
was hearing from Sheffield from the perspective
of "I'm pretty confident in myself but Sheffield was
even more confident in me than I am."
It was justified. From a pool of nearly 250 candidates, Thomas was named to the 48-player A2 roster, along with two of her Wisconsin teammates, Ellen Chapman and Annemarie Hickey.
The training camp was in Dallas from June 25 to
July 4 and Thomas and Chapman wound up on the
same gold medal-winning team. All three players
benefited from the exposure, especially Thomas.
