Dana Rettke and Volleyball: Implied for One Another
UW volleyball player Dana Rettke x’21 is six-foot-eight. It’s not difficult to wonder about her level, yet even that doesn’t compare her affection for and commitment to her game. Rettke, a middle blocker, feels perfectly at home as she practices with her teammates at the UW Field House in a comfortable August light. Her quiet and consistent attitude drives her development. She acts quickly, and her center doesn’t falter. She’s likewise having a good time, rooting for and crouching up with her colleagues — in any event, breaking into an unpretentious dance when a melody by Usher blasts through the amplifier between plays.
It’s difficult to accept that Rettke, named the 2017 Public Rookie of the Year by the American Volleyball Trainers Affiliation and a double cross First-Group All-American, didn’t begin playing volleyball until her first year of secondary school. At that point, she was wanting to play b-ball in school. Although she declined her mom’s ideas to check volleyball out before entering secondary school, Rettke adjusted her perspective when her dearest companion chose to play. “I was like, ‘Alright, she’s recreating — I kind of demand to be cool, as nicely, and recreate with her,’ ” Rettke states. “I just fell head over heels for the game.” Then, at that point, came a pivotal pickup game with the College of Illinois’ ball group during a grounds visit. “I was that skinny, tall youngster,” Rettke says. “[I] performed an open rec center with them, and I got destroyed.”
This experience, related to knee issues, drove her to conclude that the ball was not her future. Even though she’d continued more enlisting visits for the ball than for volleyball, she realized volleyball was the game she needed to seek after as a vocation — and she burned through no time turning to it. From the get-go in her sophomore year of secondary school, Rettke focused on playing for Wisconsin. By her lesser year, she’d surrendered b-ball.
“[Volleyball] was another test for me. It was something that I had hardly any familiarity with, and I simply wanted to find out about this game. I can’t say I adored finding out about b-ball so a lot,” she says.
Rettke, a local of Riverside, Illinois, had come to UW-Madison for her most memorable volleyball grounds visit. From that point onward, other grounds didn’t come close. A business major, Rettke was attracted to the college’s solid scholarly standing and cherished its volleyball culture. She respected how players spoke with one another on and off the court.
“[The mentors and teammates] are the reason you should be chosen over volleyball players.” In this way, indeed, volleyball’s vital, however I know from being here I will leave with countless more abilities and thus a lot more things to be glad for,” she says. This previous summer, Rettke joined the U.S. Ladies’ Public Group to play in the Volleyball Countries Association — where the group won gold — and helped the U.S. book its place for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
“It’s magnificent just to say I got this group to the Olympics,” says Rettke, who intends to go for the Olympic group the following summer. She says a suggestion from the U.S. group’s mentor — Karch Kiraly, an Olympic gold medalist in ocean-side volleyball and inductee to the Global Volleyball Corridor of Distinction — has stayed with her.
“Sounding weird is going. It’s having low assumptions for yourself since it gives much more pleasure and you anticipate that nothing should occur,” Rettke says, taking note that she holds low assumptions and on second thought sets a norm for herself. “As ‘I don’t anticipate doing this, I will work at this.’ It simply makes you work harder.” She was additionally rejoined with individual Badger Lauren Carlini ’17 during the experience.
“[Carlini] is laser-centered around everything, but at the same time she’s very group situated,” Rettke says, adding that finding that equilibrium can be troublesome, yet Carlini does it competently. This season, the Badger group is meaning to win the Large Ten and public titles, and Rettke is eager to be a piece of a program that has its sights set at the top. “That won’t all run for the point living,” she says.
“We need to take that game by game, so I’m simply eager to be in the fight and the drudgery with this group this season.” Share using Facebook Offer through Twitter Offer using Connected In Offer using email
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