Wisconsin captains devoting energy to what's 'best for the team' (2024)

Even as the dawn of a new season approaches, Kelly Sheffield already has experienced one of his annual highlights.

It was back in April that Sheffield had a meeting with the three players voted as captains for the 2024 University of Wisconsin volleyball team: Sarah Franklin, Julia Orzol and Devyn Robinson.

In that first captains meeting Sheffield shows each of them the comments of their teammates written out as the final step in the captain selection process. Invariably, tears are shed along the way.

“It’s usually a really powerful meeting the first time we meet with our captains and they’re reading what their teammates are saying about them anonymously,” Sheffield said. “We had multiple kids in tears when they’re reading what their teammates were writing about them. It’s almost always a really powerful thing.

“We’re trying to build leaders, trying to continue to help young people grow as humans. When you’re thinking of the building up of somebody and you’re seeing them right in front of you getting taller and taller and taller as they’re reading what their teammates are saying about them, it’s one of my favorite things that we do all year.”

Each of this year’s captains is in her final season as a Badger and each has taken a different path in developing the requisite leadership qualities the role demands.

“I remember last year I only got two votes for captain and I was like, 'OK, I could still read in people’s paragraphs the doubts that they probably had,'” said Robinson, who is in her fifth season with the program. “It was like, 'OK, those are things I can work on for next year.'

“Reading it this year, things like ‘I love how much she’s grown,’ and ‘she’s always there for us.’ It made me really emotional because that’s just what I wanted to be for my teammates. I wanted to show them I could be there for them and that I care about them and this team with all my heart.”

Franklin, who is in her third season at Wisconsin after two at Michigan State, acknowledges that she hasn’t always been an ideal teammate, sometimes lacking diplomacy in her intense desire to win. To see that her teammate recognize her efforts to improve on that was especially moving for her.

“It was very emotional for me because there were a lot of things that I had been working on in the spring that I was not good at,” she said. “I am not good at saying the right things at the right time. I’m someone who is very frustrated and emotional and competitive, so sometimes I can let my tongue slip and I’m not the best teammate or character in that area.

“The team kind of knows that but the team has allowed me to grow in that area, has allowed me to make mistakes so I can learn from those and be better. So as I was reading those there was a lot of growth area of the mind, of the character and things like that. It was very emotional for me because I had known how much work I had put into that to show a different side of myself.

“It was just so nice knowing that they can see that because sometimes you don't know. You don't have those conversations. You don’t know if everyone understands where you’re at when you’re struggling through something. So to know that they had my back there was very heartwarming.”

For Orzol, a native of Poland who is in her fourth season with the Badgers, it’s been a process in becoming comfortable with speaking up and offering her insights and opinions. She said her first year she had to focus on just adapting to her new environment and holding up her own end of things. And even as she grew more comfortable over the past two years, she still was not quite comfortable speaking up that much.

“I don’t like conflict and I don’t like saying things that may sound harsh or may hurt somebody,” Orzol said. “I think this year I started to embrace it. It was important to see that your team wants to see you in this role and wants to hear those things from you.

“I feel like last spring was the moment when I started to feel this change in me and started feeling way more comfortable saying things and not overthinking it or stopping myself, not being like 'I’m too harsh or this person is not going to like me.' No, you don’t have to be in that space. They want you to contribute and they want to know what you have to say.”

Sheffield emphasized that the selection of captains is not a popularity contest. To start the process he gives each player and coach a list of about 30 leadership qualities and has each person pick a player or two who best exemplifies each trait.

“I want them thinking about leadership in terms of qualities rather than the oldest or the best player or the player that we like the most,” he said. “I think that can be a way of how people think about leadership when they’re younger. None of that is one of our leadership qualities.”

A day or two later he has each person look back at their list at the players most frequently mentioned and write a paragraph or two on why that person should be a captain.

One of the primary functions of the captains is to serve as the bridge between the team and the coaching staff. He especially likes the diversity of experiences in this year’s tri-captains.

“Their leadership styles are very different, their personalities are very different,” he said. “How they got to this point in their lives is very different, their life experiences. But the idea is to get them to work well together. To be unified and be able to problem solve and work through things and be able to be great communicators so that bridge between the staff and the players is a short bridge rather than a long bridge.”

The captains said their differing backgrounds and temperaments complement each other well and make for a stronger leadership team than any of them could provide on their own.

“I feel like Julia, Sarah and I work really well together because we all have pieces to be one whole great captain,” Robinson said. “Not one of us has all the pieces so we kind of fill in for one another. I’m more the emotional side, being able to get people to come together. Julia is more diplomatic and Tank is the hard hitter.”

Even as she’s tried to soften her rough edges, Franklin figures her competitiveness is her biggest asset.

“I hate losing,” she said. “That’s what’s going to be on my mind so I kind of bring a very harsh and stern edge to the point where this is how it is, this is how I’m going to say it. That can be a little bit of a struggle sometimes because it’s not the easiest to grab people and go with that kind of thing. But you still need someone to be ready to go all the time and I think that’s where I bring my strength.

“Devyn is the personality. I think Devyn can get people going at any point in time. Devyn knows how to connect with people on that emotional drive level. Everyone loves to be around Devyn. She is just this firecracker where you say I want to be on her team because she is going to have so much fun. That helps me because when I see Devyn smiling, I should probably do the same thing.

“I think Oz is the calming presence. You know she’s going to be super consistent and she’s going to get her things done. Oz can be someone you lean on. Oz is someone that you can look to and she will know how to help you out in that situation because she is just someone you can trust.”

Orzol said she’s tried to take to heart some of the lessons of her previous captains — Sydney Hilley and Lauren Barnes her first year, Danielle Hart, MJ Hammill and Izzy Ashburn the second and Hammill and Ashburn last year.

“They were setting the standard and taking care of the standards,” she said. “I just liked the way that they carried themselves every day and how they approached things. I feel like that’s so important for being a leader, to just do things right. There’s no way around it, people are going to notice if you’re not doing things right.

“I’m such a big ‘feel’ person and this year I can feel the biggest ownership. That’s my word right now, ownership, and wanting the most and the best for this team. I’m devoting all of my energy toward that.”