Picture this: You spend your entire childhood playing volleyball with dreams of playing for your local school and winning a championship with them when you get older. You receive a scholarship playing for your dream school. You become an All-American. Your final year, the Final Four is hosted in your hometown. As if it was a fairytale, your team goes on a magical run to advance to the national championship. But... you get injured in the days before the championship and cannot play. Your team loses.
Pretty easy thing to imagine in your head, right? We witnessed this situation this past weekend. Anna DeBeer is a Louisville native who grew up dreaming of playing for Louisville. In her five years, DeBeer was named an All-American three times, helped lead the Cards to two Final Four appearances, and appeared to be on pace to help give Louisville its first volleyball championship. However, an ankle sprain in the semifinal helped her collegiate career come to an abrupt ending and Louisville was missing its heart and soul in the final match and fell.
Sports are cruel. They can dangle the thing you want the most right in front of you and yank it away at the last second. Sports can be Lucy, from the comic strip Peanuts..holding the football for you to kick..and jerking it away at the funal second...as you miss the ball and land on your back.
The volleyball world watched in disbelief as DeBeer was helped off the court against Pittsburgh in the fourth set. Then, Louisville fans everywhere watched in disappointment as Penn State was able to take control of the second half to win the title in the ards next outing. Louisville was as close as you could be to winning the championship and even began building momentum at halftime after winning an extended and grueling second set. But, without their leader, Louisville came up just short.
"What if?" Now all of Louisville has to look back and think "What if". What if DeBeer didn't get hurt? Does Louisville win? Personally, I believe Louisville wins. The Cards played a competitive match even without their star player. Just think how they could have fared had she been healthy enough to play.
But...
But, while sports can show its cruelty at times, sports offers so much more than that. Sports offers excitement, joy, love, passion, and hope. Sports can bring so much positivity into someone's life.
Looking back at the last few Louisville volleyball seasons, we have seen massive growth in popularity. For the last couple years, the waiting list for season tickets has grown into the hundreds.
Louisville set its own program record for number of fans at a regular season match. They then turned around and helped shatter the attendance records for the national semifinals and final- a sold out KFC Yum! Center.
In a time where both Louisville womens and mens basketball teams were falling short of expectations (one much more so than the other), fans turned to Louisville volleyball for hope and joy. Fans were hopeful for great seasons and big tournament runs. The wins against top tier opponents brought joy and excitement to Louisville fans everywhere. Louisville fans united to cheer on the Cards and celebrate in the many joyous occasions, but to also offer each other support and a leg to stand on through the losses and heartbreak.
The Cards got into some epic matches against the best programs in the country. Many of these matches were aired on major national tv networks, drawing in hundreds of thousands of viewers and even surpassed one million viewers on multiple occasions.
Young girls everywhere looked up to this new generation of role models. DeBeer and Elena Scott being Louisville natives were certainly fan favorites but posters boasting the names of all players on the UofL squad could be seen in the crowd. Fans would line up and wait for over an hour to get autographs and pictures with players. Many of these young girls found inspiration and courage to continue to pursuing their passion and dreams to play the sport they love.
We saw a women's sport grow in popularity more this season and continued to make strides in attendance numbers and tv viewership. We saw the first woman head coach to win a volleyball title happen this year.
It's not just volleyball where we see these things happen. It's across all sports. But Louisville volleyball helped make an impact in the world of volleyball. It's a beautiful thing to see the good that sports can bring.
Cardinal Couple had another great season in 2024...covering the joy and excitement of Louisville volleyball and all Cardinals womens athletics.. While our part may be small in the overall spectrum, we are glad to be a part of the great things that sports can bring. And, we are grateful toyou, the reader, for being there to follow us, to make suggestions, give compliments and being the target we hope to hit successfully as we thro our journalistic darts at the big circle of Carinals women sports each day.
Thank you, We hope Santa brings you lots of goodies tomorrow and that you also remember "the readon for the season".
Happy Tuesday, Happy Christmas Eve, and Go Cards!
Jared
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