Dana Rettke: The middle pioneering a new age of women’s volleyball

HERMOSA BEACH, California — Dana Rettke loathes the question.

 

It’s not that it’s an unfair one, or even a bad question at all. It’s just that, when she’s asked — and she is always asked this question, by some media outlet at some event — who her volleyball role model was growing up, she doesn’t have an answer.

“I hate the question: ‘Who is your volleyball idol? Who do you want to be like?’ ” Rettke said on SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter. “I did not have one. That sounds bad. I don’t want to have that answer. Women’s volleyball — the NCAA Championship was on, but that was your one game.”

She can recall watching one volleyball match as a kid: The 2013 NCAA Championship. Penn State vs. Wisconsin.

That’s it.

That was the match.

How could she have picked a role model from a single match played by two schools outside of her state, in a National Championship that took place in Seattle?

Eleven years later, think about that question, and then think about its hundreds, perhaps thousands, of possible candidates. In barely a decade, the sport has entered an entirely new stratosphere. Volleyball is now the most popular sport for girls in the United States. The Big Ten Network televises regular-season matches. ESPN too. Volleyball TV streams both professional indoor leagues and NCAA. Nebraska sold out a football stadium, 92,000 people coming to watch a blowout. Wisconsin sells out whenever the Badgers are at home. NIL money is pouring in. Three professional volleyball leagues are now in the United States, with LOVB beginning this January.

“It’s been crazy. I had a conversation with my dad about that, that college volleyball is getting all this exposure and he said you guys kind of pioneered that, you were at the forefront of that,” Rettke said. “We didn’t get all of the benefits in terms of NIL and stuff like that, but my whole class at Wisconsin those five years was a part of that. Now looking back and reflecting and seeing how far it’s all come, volleyball is getting the recognition it deserves, and we need to go a little bit further. It’s such an untapped market in terms of media and sponsorships. You can tell by the ratings of the NCAA tournaments, by the pro leagues starting up, by the viewership on TV. It’s just been really awesome to see that.

“I’m trying to create those opportunities and to make sure I do them because it’s so important for me to give back to my old club, my high school, to be around young athletes is something I’m passionate about.”

For young girls answering the question about their volleyball role model, there are few better to choose than Rettke.

The 6-foot-8 middle from the Chicago suburb of Riverside, Illinois, has every reason to be the very picture of athletic arrogance. Success — immense success — has met her at every step of her career. As a senior at Riverside-Brookfield High School, she set the school record for kills and blocks in a single season. She was named the 2016 Illinois State Player of the Year. Recruited and committed to Wisconsin before she could drive a car.

And yet there is Rettke, 6 feet, 8 inches of aw-shucks humility that is as genuine as she is tall.

“From a very young age, doesn’t matter if it was basketball, dance, anything I was heavily involved in, I was always with an older age group,” Rettke said. “I remember being pretty intimidated by that and just thinking you gotta do it. I always had this attitude from a very young age of work your way up. Blue collar, put your head down, and work your way up, and that was hard.

“Even as an 8-year-old being in a 10-year-old dance class, that’s intimidating. But I remember thinking I will be as good as these older girls eventually, I just need to get better. When I switched to volleyball, ‘OK, put your head down and work.’ When I went to Wisconsin, put your head down and work. I wanted to earn my stripes, I wanted to work my way up and nothing was guaranteed, nothing was given to me, I wanted to earn that. That has probably been the biggest gift I have had. I don’t expect anything. I know nothing will be given to me and I want to earn everything that I do.”

She’s earned it, all right. All of it. Earned the starting spot as a freshman at Wisconsin, where she started all 32 matches, was named the Big 10 Freshman of the Year, AVCA Freshman of the Year, and first-team All-American. Earned four more first-team All-American nods, the only volleyball player in history to do so. Earned Big 10 Female Athlete of the Year and a pair of finalist nominations for the Honda Award.

It would be easy to dismiss much of this acclaim to the 6-foot-8 frame that is impossible to miss. But that would be, at best, a lazy explanation for Rettke’s massive success at every step along her career. Her parents, Kathy and John, never once pigeon-holed their towering daughter into roles meant mostly for taller individuals. Neither, bless their hearts, did her coaches across the various sports she played. Her youth basketball coach had the center doing point guard drills, dribbling through cones. Dance kept her feet nimble, movements coordinated and smooth.

“I remember being in tap class, first year taking tap, standing in front of a mirror, and the teacher starts saying things and everyone starts to do it, and I have no idea what I’m doing, I just start moving my feet, making noise,” Rettke said with a laugh. “Then towards the end of the year, I knew everything. You’re probably going to be embarrassed and make mistakes, but how are you going to come back from that? Am I going to go home and tell my mom I want to quit? No I went back and did it again even though it was hard.”

This applied everywhere from tap class to Wisconsin. Was Rettke ever going to be an outside? Not likely. Yet Kelly Sheffield still put her in passing drills to make her the best all-around player she could be.

The results speak for themselves.

“I always tell youngsters, do not just be a middle, do not just be an outside, do not just be an opposite,” Rettke said. “You never know what’s going to come your way.”

What has come Rettke’s way since Wisconsin is two years with Monza in the Italian League, considered by many as the highest professional level in the world. A call from Karch Kiraly to travel with the USA to the Paris Olympic Games. A future with boundless potential for the 25-year-old whose blue-collar work ethic applies everywhere from a tap room in a Chicago suburb to a gym in Italy to the bright lights of the Olympic Games.

“We can do some amazing things this tournament,” Rettke said. “The possibilities are endless.”

More important than any medal, there is the possibility — more likely an inevitability — that, this fall, an NCAA player will be asked about their volleyball idol, the player they watch, the player they want to be. This will be a question they love to answer, because it isn’t difficult to think of a name: Dana Rettke.

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