Playing volleyball overseas started as an opportunity to prove a point. It became an opportunity to turn disappointment into something good.
When Lauren Westendorf and Kelly Russell decided to continue their volleyball careers abroad, they cited different motivations.
Westendorf, whose Oregon college career ended because of injury, sought to prove to herself that she could play elite volleyball again. Russell plans to experience the rich culture of Europe.
The two competitive athletes both set out to continue playing after disappointing finishes to their Oregon volleyball careers, beset by transfers, injuries and a coaching change.
“I knew that I would always regret if I didn’t finish my volleyball career the way that I intended – on top and playing well,” Westendorf said.
Westendorf played last year in Salzburg, Austria, and two weeks ago ended her season and simultaneously chose to retire from competitive volleyball, satisfied she had accomplished her comeback. Russell is working with Bring It Promotions, a sports agency, to find a team in Spain.
Russell’s boyfriend, Thomas Bieri, is a native of Schoenenbuch, Switzerland, and has taken her to Europe multiple times. Russell plans to take courses in conversational Spanish at a local community college near her hometown of Vancouver, Wash., this summer.
“Being with him has made me want to really explore more and more and get myself immersed in different cultures,” Russell said.
After Oregon’s season ended with a disappointing record, 12-18 overall, 1-17 Pacific-10 Conference, Russell wanted more. The outside hitter had 380 kills – second behind Mira Djuric – and 28 service aces last year.
“The season didn’t work out this year and I didn’t feel like I completely accomplished my goals or ended on the best note,” Russell said.
Finding a way
Westendorf used Bring It Promotions to get overseas and suggested it to Russell.
The agency is designed to represent athletes, negotiate contracts, match players with teams and seek advertising and marketing opportunities.
Interested players go on exposure tours, where they are grouped together and play top teams in countries on the tour. Players pay between $1,100 and $1,600 out of pocket for an average 11-day tour. This year’s tours went to countries including Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Holland and Belgium.
Tours also give players a taste of another culture and see if they can handle the average eight- to nine-month commitment. Most clubs allow two to three foreign players and Bring It Promotions tries to place two Americans together, but players do get homesick and leave, forcing the agency to try and find replacement players and mend relationships with clubs.
“In the beginning, we had so many players either quit or just get homesick and just really not be able to hack out the season,” said Brooke Rundle, director of player management and women’s placements.
Where players go depends on clubs’ position needs, competition level and salary. In general, players usually have one to three teams to choose from, Rundle said.
The players’ pay can range, based on experience and location, from a few hundred dollars to more than $10,000 a month.
The length of the season goes from August or September through sometime between March and May. Once the season ends, clubs learn who is or isn’t returning and can begin making decisions on needs for next year.
Russell participated on a March tour to cities in Spain (Alicante, Cordoba, Madrid, Seville, Valencia) and wants to sign with a team in Valencia and is waiting for a possible offer.
“We’re only now beginning to negotiate the contracts for the players for the ’06-’07 season, but I’m confident that Kelly will definitely sign to a good team over there,” said Rundle, who also negotiated Westendorf’s contract.
Standard contracts provide for a furnished apartment, roundtrip airline ticket, health insurance and payment assurances. Westendorf’s contract included Internet access, cable television and a plane ticket home for Christmas.
“All those little things that you take so much for granted in America, you don’t necessarily think to ask for, but you need to ask for (overseas) because they aren’t necessarily provided,” Westendorf said.
U.S. volleyball nonexistent
Theories on why professional indoor volleyball has never caught on in the United States vary from the lack of television coverage to Europe’s university system. The next closest thing, the Association of Volleyball Professionals, is a two-man and two-woman professional beach volleyball league, but it too suffers from a lack of coverage by major television networks.
“If you televise volleyball the way it should be televised with the number of cameras that they put in an NBA game and you do it right, people will go ‘Wow, this is great,’” Oregon coach Jim Moore said.
“But nobody is going to put out that expense until they know that it’s going to make money, and so it’s a Catch-22, and it’s never going to happen.”
Europe’s universities operate without athletic programs, unlike the United States, which creates openings for club teams that can pay players and use sponsorships. Most college players, unless they are upper echelon talent, are burnt out and many don’t find it worthwhile to continue playing, Rundle said.
Stacy Metro, Moore’s wife and an assistant coach at Oregon, earned a $40,000 offer from the top level of the Italian league 12 years ago. She turned down the offer, choosing to join Moore as an assistant coach at Kansas State.
“When I was playing there wasn’t really that much knowledge about (volleyball overseas),” Metro said. “It was still kind of novel.”
In her four-year college career, Metro became the first two-time AVCA National Player of the
Year and a three-time First Team All-American (1991-93). She continued to train after her college career ended in 1993 and joined the USA National Team after playing professionally in Peru.
“You just play for the love of your sport because you don’t want it to end in college,” Metro said.
Career cut short
When she has free time, Westendorf sits down, slips in the DVD and presses play. On the screen a volleyball match takes place at McArthur Court. An awkward camera angle shows the volleyball go wide. Westendorf chases it, then blurriness envelops the play. She knows intimately what the tape doesn’t show: her falling down with a torn right anterior cruciate ligament.
Two years since the match ended in September 2004, Westendorf continues to search for answers. She questions why her collegiate career needed to end that Friday night as her family watched online.
At the same time, because of her faith, Westendorf accepts it.
Oregon team physician Ken Singer, who later performed the operation, said it takes six months for a complete recovery and three months before Westendorf, in her case, was able to walk. Compared to 15 years ago, Singer says 90 percent of athletes with this injury fully recover – Westendorf included.
Still, she thinks back all the time.
“What if? What if? You can play that game until you’re blue in the face,” Westendorf said.
“It happened.”
Oregon started 8-2 that season, possessed a balanced attack and had Westendorf believing this was the team that could erase years of losing and create a winning legacy.
Pacific-10 Conference play began and Oregon was hosting Civil War rival Oregon State before 1,902 fans. GoDucks.com, Oregon’s athletics Web site, broadcast its first volleyball match of the season and Westendorf’s family watched from Bakersfield, Calif.
“We had a close first game (lost 31-29) and then the inevitable happened,” she said.
Ex-Oregon coach Carl Ferreira moved Westendorf, an outside hitter, behind the setter. The serve went wide. She moved to get the ball and went down.
Westendorf realized she had no stability in her right leg. Her team
mates could only watch. Some covered their mouths with their hands and fellow Duck Katie O’Neal’s face turned white.
“Doctors wouldn’t make an immediate diagnosis, but I just knew,” Westendorf said. “I knew that I had never felt anything like that before and I knew it was my knee and I knew I felt the pop.”
Following the initial examination, Westendorf grabbed crutches, a brace and a pack of ice before sitting down on the Oregon sidelines, held back tears and vocally supported her teammates.
Oregon managed one win, in game four, before succumbing in five games. Teammates didn’t discuss the incident afterward.
“None of us wanted to talk about it until we knew for sure,” Westendorf said.
The next morning, doctors confirmed her worst fears. The do-everything volleyball player, who led her team on the court and had been playing her best volleyball, could no longer do what she loved.
“I’m not on the court,” Westendorf said. “I can’t perform – I had to learn to be a vocal leader and not that leader by example I was used to.”
Westendorf made the transition from player to coach and advised teammates but didn’t travel because of possible blood clots in her knee. The team she had such high hopes for disappeared in a 2-17 slide to close the season.
Westendorf focused on the positives, attacked rehab and considered a medical redshirt.
A close friend at the University of Illinois, Erin Virtue, had an injury seven days earlier (Sept. 17, 2004) and applied for another year. When she was turned down, Westendorf dropped plans to appeal.
“I was devastated that I didn’t get a redshirt,” she said.
Moore became head coach in February and Westendorf worked out with him in the spring. He too wonders: What could have been?
“We would have been significantly better, partly because of her physical ability, but just her ability to lead and do certain things that would have helped us tremendously,” Moore said. “She’s a very very good player and I told her that.”
Going to Europe almost came as an afterthought. Players go overseas for the culture experience, not to play volleyball, her agent told her. In June, Westendorf seriously considered it, discussing it with her agent and securing a contract in July with a club in Salzburg, Austria.
She abandoned her knee brace and fully immersed herself in the eight-month European season.
Westendorf enjoyed the season, but now she is retired and ready for a break with her family, she said.
“I’ve been on the go for five years now,” she said. “I’m ready to chill out with my family and go to my brother’s baseball games and be in the sun and see my friends – just be a kid again.”
