For the majority of the 13 women on the Duke volleyball team, the sport is an everyday part of their lives in college; it's why they came to Duke; it's become part of their routine. For fifth-year senior Jenny Stadler, volleyball means so much more-it is the fulfillment of a dream.
"I was in eighth grade when my brother went to Duke," Stadler said. "And I used to come visit him all the time and I just loved Duke and I loved volleyball. So, it's been my dream since eighth grade to play volleyball here. All through high school, I worked towards playing here."
After a fairly tumultuous and unpredictable road, Stadler's dream has finally come true.
The former walk-on is now one of only three Duke players to compete in every game in every match thus far this year. And that following a 1996 campaign, her first with the Blue Devils, in which she appeared in a scant four matches. Stadler is currently Duke's leader on attack, with 3.4 kills per game, completing an improbable and meteoric rise from the end of the bench to a role as one of the Blue Devils' most indispensable players.
"Jenny is also a leader in an energy sense," coach Linda Grensing said. "Because this is her dream, she is just happy to be in practice every day. For her, this is new, it's fresh, it's exciting-that's what she spreads to people every day. Comments like, 'We are so lucky to be here, this so cool, I love volleyball so much,' which is just a neat thing to see."
Stadler's tough trek began her freshman year, when she came to Duke with the understanding from then-coach Jon Wilson that she would have an opportunity to walk on to the Blue Devil squad. That opportunity did not materialize.
"I got to Duke and I called coach Wilson and it basically just didn't work out," Stadler said. "I was very persistent but he just didn't give me a chance-he never even gave me a tryout."
Stadler spent her first year at Duke away from athletics in general, but joined the women's track team her sophomore year. She competed, primarily in the heptathlon and javelin for the next two years. In the heptathlon, she excelled immediately, finishing eighth at the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships with 3,989 points. She is still second all-time at Duke in the javelin, with a career best throw of 122'8". But still, something was missing.
"I was very happy with track because it was very challenging athletically, but I still missed volleyball," Stadler said.
Stadler's discontent came to a head during winter break of her junior year. One day over Christmas she picked up the phone and called the Blue Devils' new coach, Grensing, who had just wrapped up her first season in charge at Duke. Grensing agreed to give Stadler a look and after a short workout, the coach decided the player was worth an extended tryout.
"Initially, I thought here's a kid that's 5-11, she's athletic, she does the heptathlon for the track team," Grensing said. "She seemed like a good kid and I thought, what can it hurt to go into a practice gym for 15 minutes and see where she is skill-wise and athletically. She picked things up immediately and I said to myself, 'we're low on numbers in the gym, we have some kids who were injured, let's just extend the tryout into the spring and see where things go.'"
That first spring was tough for Stadler as she split time between both track and volleyball, especially since she had not played competitive volleyball since her last year of high school at Ransom-Everglades HS in south Florida.
"I had to work really hard because I hadn't played in so long and I was very rusty, which I think was very obvious," Stadler said. "Linda was very patient with me and worked with me a lot individually. After the spring, she told me that she wanted me to be on the team, but not do track so I could concentrate on volleyball."
Stadler did just that and joined the volleyball team full time in the fall of her senior year. The season was an unspectacular one as the Coral Gables, Fla. native finished the year having seen action in six games, recording a mere four kills.
"To describe last year," Stadler said. "My mom came to our tournament down in Florida last year and my whole family told me, 'Jenny, it's not that we don't like coming to your matches, it's just that we get kind of bored just watching you sit on the bench.'"
Then, as the season wound down, the improbable happened.
"The end of last season was very anti-climactic," Stadler said. "I knew I was going to miss it so much because I hadn't had enough of college volleyball yet. I didn't say anything about it to my coaches, but I went home and prayed about it and then the very next day, the coaches called me in and they were like, 'What do you think about staying for a fifth year?' It was the answer to everything."
Now, Stadler has not only been given a scholarship and the chance to completely live out her dream, she is also using the opportunity academically to obtain an Education Certificate from the University. She plans to pursue a teaching career.
Stadler has also returned the favor athletically by providing the Blue Devils with what, thus far, has been their primary attack option.
"Jenny is a good athlete and a talented player," Grensing said. "Her development wasn't really a surprise for us, it was just a matter of when will she blossom? Obviously, we were pretty pleased when it happened in the early part of the season when we needed someone to step up into that role."
The timing could not have been any better for Duke, which was without a fully recovered Sarah Peifer, last year's leader in kills and ACC Freshman of the Year, who was still rehabilitating her shoulder after off-season surgery. Now that Peifer is back, Stadler will still play an equally indispensable role.
"What I'd like to see with our team is some more well-rounded options with Peifer getting less swings, just because Sarah can't physically survive swinging 150 times a weekend," Stadler said. "I would rather see five people equally balanced on the stat sheet."
With the importance of her role on the team firmly set, Stadler has taken to improving the technical aspects of her game. After peaking by earning all-tournament honors three weekends ago in Chicago, a rough outing this past weekend inspired Stadler to concentrate on some adjustments in her hitting style.
"I think I need to improve my range of shots, like [senior outside hitter] Mo Reindl-she has so many great shots," Stadler said. "I'm just used to going up and hitting it as hard as I can, and in high school that worked, and sometimes that works here when I hit it high off of people's hands, but usually it just comes back at my face twice as hard as I hit it."
Regardless of her abilities on the court, Stadler adds another dimension to the Blue Devil squad aside from her enthusiasm and athletic ability-her spiritual strength.
"Jenny is also very much of a spiritual leader in terms of where she is in her faith," Grensing said. "She provides a lot of stability for the other kids around her, she's a very positive kid and I think that adds a lot to our team."
Stadler's strong religious faith has carried over onto the court and has played a large role in her development as a player. She spent the summer of 1996 in Africa playing volleyball with the religiously-oriented Athletes in Action tour. The trip brought two of the biggest aspects of Stadler's life together and has given her the base for her current view on God and her athletic career.
"Really, I play volleyball for God," Stadler said. "I'm just so thankful that He has given me the opportunity to play. I know the He has given me this opportunity, because it was so random and so out of the blue. If I don't give 100 percent on the court everyday, then that's not fair to God."
Her effort has never been a question-the chance was the one the thing that was lacking. Now Stadler is making the most of an opportunity she believed she might never have.
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