Nebraska women’s volleyball goes all out. The Cornhuskers, who set a world record last season for attendance at a women’s sporting event when 92,003 fans filled Memorial Stadium, are regularly packing Bob Devaney Sports Center with nearly 9,000 fans this season.
The crowd chants in unison and sometimes even cheers for the opposing team if they consider the play admirable enough. Nebraska knows how to put on a show in the city of Lincoln.
“And we’re prepping now to be a part of that show,” UCLA middle blocker Anna Dodson said.
The Bruins will play at No. 2 Nebraska at 5 p.m. Friday to mark not just their first Big Ten Conference match but also their entrance onto a bigger stage of volleyball.
“People care about volleyball in the Big Ten and so we’ll see a lot of eyes turning toward our sport and rightfully so,” UCLA head coach Alfee Reft said. “We’re playing in big venues and I think people will see this fall that it looks a little different from playing in the Pac-12.”
Interest in volleyball has been growing at all levels in recent years. Volleyball was the second-most popular girls high school sport in the 2021-22 school YEAR with 454,153 participants nationally, according to the National Federation of High Schools.
That number rose to 470,488 the following season.
in addition to Nebraska’s record-setting attendance, 1.7 million people tuned into ABC to watch the NCAA Division I championship match between Texas and Nebraska. Female viewers made up 51% of the audience.
“It’s truly just remarkable being a part of the sport and just thinking back to college volleyball when I was younger,” said Dodson, a graduate student.
“There are so many people that care for (female athletes) and bring that inspiration to them and let them follow their dreams, whether that’s in volleyball or another sport. And I think the Big Ten is really big on that and they allow for the sport to show its greatness.”
Friday’s match will be Reft’s return to the conference he started his collegiate coaching career as an assistant coach at Minnesota from 2010-12 and Illinois from 2018-19. He helped take Illinois to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances as well as a national semifinal.
UCLA middle hitter Leilani Dodson – no relation to teammate Anna Dodson – will be continuing play in the Big Ten Conference as a graduate student after previously playing for Northwestern. She and Reft are excited and ready for the physical play, heavy arms and scrappy defense for which the conference is known.
“Serving tough and getting them out of system to put ourselves in better situations to be able to defend and playing smarter and adapting to new environments will be big for us,” Leilani Dodson said.
UCLA’s nonconference schedule included multiple road trips to places like Atlanta and Knoxville, Tennessee, to help prepare the Bruins for the demanding travel schedule the Big Ten will bring.
The mental side of volleyball isn’t being overlooked, either. The Bruins have a mindfulness coach that travels with the team to help them prepare for situations that might cause a spike in anxiety or stress – like playing in front of a crowd of 10,000 people.
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“We work on all the skill sets of volleyball that we need to be good at,” Reft said. “But we also know we can only access that if we can be good with our mind and having awareness of where our emotions go.”
The Bruins will face heightened competition and a change in volleyball style as they debut in a new conference, but they’re not about to compromise their own style of play. They’re just adding to the spectacle that is Big Ten volleyball.
“We’re excited to play in huge environments with such great atmospheres and such a love of volleyball that the Big Ten has,” Anna Dodson said. “And really push to the forefront of the conference.”