LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – If you do this job long enough, and you cover enough really good teams, you walk into your share of locker rooms to find players who have come up short of winning a national championship game. It’s a tough scene.
I haven’t seen many tougher than the one I found after turning the corner to see a trainer cutting the tape of Anna DeBeer’s ankles, one last time. DeBeer knew that an ankle injury sustained in the Final Four win over Pittsburgh was going to keep her from playing in Sunday’s national championship game against Penn State.
But she still got her ankles taped. Old habits die hard. One more time, for old time’s sake, at Louisville, anyway. And the tears flowed.
And why wouldn’t they? DeBeer came back to play one more season of college volleyball to take the court on this exact afternoon. In this place. A chance to play for a national championship, for her hometown university, in her hometown.
Louisville's Anna DeBeer shakes hands with Penn State coach Katie Schumacher Cawley after the Nitanny Lions' win in the NCAA Championship volleyball game.
Even on a team ranked No. 6 in the preseason, it was a long shot. Louisville would wind up playing a schedule that included every other team in the Elite Eight. And if the competition didn’t get the Cardinals, you’d figure the pressure would. The psychological grind of having that goal in front of you, and the expectation that gave rise to.
Nobody carried more of that pressure than DeBeer, who wanted to make her decision count for something, and to do something that no Louisville athlete had done, while staking a lifetime accomplishment for the sport she loves, the university she loves, and the city she loves. And to do it all right here.
Instead, having helped lead the Cardinals to the Promised Land, she was not permitted to enter, or even play.
“I think it’s emotional when you have a player like Anna out,” Louisville coach Dani Busboom Kelly said. “Everybody in this building knows that that outcome, it might not have been different, but it would have been a different match. She’s sacrificed a lot, and to see that game taken away from her was really tough.”
DeBeer watched her teammates warm up. She ran out at game time in a libero’s jersey. She encouraged from the bench, even jumped into huddles to lend instruction or encouragement.
“I knew it was going to be hard,” DeBeer said. “But I knew that I needed to just do whatever I could, whatever role that was. It’s very unfortunate, just the situation with my injury, and it just seemed like all the stars were aligning for such a perfect game in Louisville, finishing my career, and we worked so freaking hard all year to get where we are, and it was just so close. So, I think that's what's really hard, but I'm so extremely proud of just the way everyone fought tonight.”
Who knows why these things happen? They do. On the other sideline, Penn State coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley is coaching through a fight with Stage 2 breast cancer.
“Everything happens for a reason,” DeBeer said. “I’m just really trying to stay hopeful, and know that God has a plan for me and I’m going to get through this.”
Like DeBeer, I would say I believe that things happen, or are allowed to happen, for a reason. And I’ve seen them happen. I was there when Kevin Ware broke his leg. Mike Bush too. I’m sure Schumacher-Cawley has had some moments of searching for meaning behind her illness.
If you’re still reading this, hoping for an answer, I don’t have one. But maybe a day will come when DeBeer finds herself face-to-face with a kid who is crushed by something, and can say, “I got all the way to the national championship game, but got hurt and didn’t play, and my team didn’t win a championship, but I never stopped working.”
And I’m confident DeBeer won’t stop pursuing her volleyball dream, at the next level. Anyone who has watched her for any amount of time at Louisville knows the grit and tenacity she brings to the game, and the resilience she has shown over the past five years.
“The best five years of my life,” DeBeer said. “Genuinely, I've had the hardest times. I've had the best times. And really, what makes it special is the people. And there's no better team, no better team culture, no better coaching staff in the country. And I truly believe that, and that's what made my career so special.”
DeBeer’s teammates felt for her, and they felt for themselves. Elena Scott competed against DeBeer at every step of the way until they became college teammates. Scott, a first-team All-American, held back nothing.
“She was very emotional in this match,” Busboom Kelly said. “You could see how much she wanted it and how much it meant to her, and literally did every possible human thing to give us a chance.”
That the program had that chance at all was a testament to DeBeer’s ability and leadership, among many other things.
“Second place is, like, almost the worst,” DeBeer said. “Because you're so close, and all the emotions get higher and higher as you go on with the year and continue to win in the tournament. And that's why I feel this way right now, and so does the team. I'm really proud, because we could have not been here, and we did it, and we proved a lot of people wrong, and we showed that we're a team and we're going to battle for each other, and that's ultimately what we did tonight.”
DeBeer did not hoist the big trophy Sunday afternoon. But she told a great story. This chapter just ended a bit too sadly. But if you think about it, some of the best stories are sad ones, as long as we can move forward, and use them for good.
That’s hard to see when the clock hits zero and the confetti is falling on the other team. But It's what this whole (holiday) season is about, really. And maybe, it’s what the volleyball season was about, too. When the confetti is cleared away, what a remarkable run it was.
Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.