There has never been a season like it.
NCAA women’s volleyball attendance and TV ratings were broken seemingly every day. The competition was fantastic and interest has never been higher. Here at VolleyballMag, we have shattered our previous best page-views record and NCAA women’s volleyball was a huge part of that accomplishment.
Here’s a chronological look back at 2023 and our top NCAA women’s posts. Click on any highlighted link to read that story from a year that amazed us throughout.
There was tremendous interest in two interviews we did with retiring coaches, Joe Sagula of North Carolina and Dave Rubio of Arizona. The veteran stalwarts of our sport had a lot to say about their jobs and how much college volleyball has changed:
One of our most viewed posts was Lincoln Arneal’s February Q&A with Nebraska coach John Cook:
Speaking of Nebraska, this was a big story in February when Nebraska announced it would play a match in its football stadium. There were, of course, more stories to come about that event:
This story the day before the match was a big hit:
And then Nebraska played Omaha before 92,003. Arneal covered it and Matt Smith had some great photos:
Two stories that went up three days apart were quite significant. The first announced Jaime Gordon as the new executive director of the AVCA; the second told about the death of longtime American University coach Barry Goldberg, a great guy taken from us way too soon by cancer:
One feature that was spot on was Chuck Curti’s piece about Grand Canyon and how it was making big strides in women’s, beach and men’s volleyball:
Photographer Zach Schuster showed he can write, too, with this piece on former Wisconsin setter Sydney Hilley, who made a Madison homecoming with Athletes Unlimited last April:
Dennis Punzel previewed Wisconsin’s trip to Europe which was quite an adventure:
This feature was something else. Chuck Curti wrote about former Eastern Michigan outside Franki Strefling, who has become a pro wrestler:
Right before the season we were able to get the band back together for a video as Emily Ehman and I were joined by Notre Dame coach Salima Rockwell and Southern Miss coach Jenny Hazelwood:
We were only able to get together one more time, a month later, but man did we laugh:
Curti featured Howard’s Rya McKinnon, who went on to repeat as the MEAC player of the year:
Curti wrote about Western Michigan, which went on to win the MAC and pull off the first big upset of the NCAA Tournament:
We launched the VolleyballMag.com Super 16 Media Poll on September 25 and it was a big weekly hit. We had a tremendous panel. Here’s the first one:
And here’s the last VBM Poll, from November 27, with links to every week’s story.
We had so many funny Zooms with Emily Ehman, but this one where she met the Jonas Brothers was something else:
Cassidy Lichtman, the former Stanford All-American and USA national-team player and now the director of volleyball for Athletes Unlimited, wrote an essay for us about the state of volleyball and noted that “the biggest push is yet to come. I cannot wait until volleyball is cemented into mainstream culture and conversations and it’s going to take all of our collective efforts to get there.”
After the NCAA selection show, Emily and I interviewed, in order, Nebraska libero Lexi Rodriguez; Pittsburgh coach Dan Fisher; Stanford setter Kami Miner; Holly Strauss-O’Brien, the chair of the NCAA Division I women’s volleyball committee; Oregon coach Matt Ulmer; Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield; and Kentucky coach Craig Skinner.
It was an adrenaline-filled night and the Zoom went great:
Once the field was announced, we had features on Fairfield, Eastern Illinois and USC’s Skylar Fields:
We had all four regional final match stories as Pittsburgh, then Nebraska, followed by Wisconsin, and finally Texas got into the NCAA national semifinals:
Then came Nebraska’s win over Pitt before Texas upset Wisconsin:
We got to interview new NCAA president Charlie Baker before the NCAA title match:
In the end, it was Texas, and the Longhorns’ victory over Nebraska that produced another record crown and great TV ratings:
And finally, we announced the VolleyballMag.com All-American teams, player, coach and freshman of the year:
As noted above, this was a record year for us, too, and it’s all because of our readers. So as we head into 2024, a big thanks from VolleyballMag!
