BIG TEN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA DAYS

August 3, 2026

Kelly Sheffield

Charlie Fuerbringer

Grace Egan

Wisconsin Badgers

Press Conference

KELLY SHEFFIELD: Great morning, and thank you for everybody for coming, very appreciative of Big Ten Conference and BTN for all the supports for this great sport.

And right before, I was talking with the AD at Wisconsin right before I took the job, I talked to Jim Stone and Mike Hebert and Russ Rose and John Cook and Dave Shondell, all five of those guys I had conversations with I think it might have been Mike Hebert that said, if you're a competitive junkie, there's no better place to be than the Big Ten Conference in volleyball. And that certainly has certainly lived up to that.

I'm not sure there is anything that I heard from many of those guys that kind of got me more revved up than that. And this year, I think the number of returners across the country is across the conference has been really impressive. And I think it's going to be a step up in class for the league this year.

I think that's how we try to schedule. This is not only the toughest schedule we've ever had. I can't imagine there's been anybody that's put together -- not put together but maybe just said, yes, as many times as what we did with who we're playing.

So we've got a really young team. We've got 11 newcomers and I think nine of them are freshmen. We don't have a single girl fifth year player on our roster. So it is a lot -- we're three days in right now and it is a lot of learning and teaching.

I'm really excited for people to get to know the players on this year's roster. We've got 18 of them. I'm here with two of our very best, Charlie Fuerbringer, who is going into her third year, All-American setter, team captain for us, tremendous leader in Grace Egan, who's going into her second year with us, started for us last year on our run of the Final Four. And these are two of the best as far as exemplary leaders that I think we've had. So we're excited to be here with you guys.

Q. (Off microphone)

GRACE EGAN: I think everyone has stepped up their game. I mean they're new. And Badger volleyball is really important and the culture is really important. So once they started off strong, I mean, Jaela Auguste came in and she's ready to work and put in that grit and that work in. She stood out a lot to me. She's an older player too so she comes in a lot of strength and helps us run the program.

CHARLIE FUERBRINGER: I think everyone's improved, specifically our freshman have done such an amazing job. I think coming in early and having that full spring really helped them to get adjusted to what our standard is here at Wisconsin. So I think all of our freshmen have just done such an amazing job just like Grace said I mean everyone has stepped up and gotten a lot better since the spring.

KELLY SHEFFIELD: Big Ten Tournament, that's something that the coaches have been talking about for years. And I would say that I've been on both sides of the ledger of absolutely I'm not for it and there's other times it's like all right let's go.

And I think everybody just kind of kept working -- the conference, Grace did a great job of just finding where is that kind of that sweet spot of being, I think we all like the idea of it. I think the Big Ten does a great job putting on events and so here we are.

Some of the teams, it's a little sad that you're only playing them once, and maybe every other year that you get somebody in your own venue? I kind of miss the old days where you're playing everybody twice, home and away. But a lot of this is kind of outside of our control.

But I'd say I'm really looking forward to having a winner-take-all in this conference. So I think we're pretty excited about it.

Q. Is there anything else you've kind of changed with the schedule now you have three less teams there?

KELLY SHEFFIELD: If you're doing it right in the Big Ten Tournament, you're playing three more matches. Some of these teams might end up playing even a little bit more. So no, we weren't interested in adding anything.

I think if you're in the tournament and you're advancing past a round, then that schedule is going to get really hairy pretty quickly. We weren't looking to fill anything else.

Q. What do you see different from this team and what do you see similar to some of your other teams?

KELLY SHEFFIELD: What do I see? I see a lot of new faces. A lot of those. And you know, I think back to the people that I first got around, when I first started -- Steve Shondell, I mentioned, Dave Shondell earlier, Wes Lyon, Jim Craig -- I mean, the things, when I first started, they were all teachers. That was their background. They were teaching biology or elementary ed or whatever.

And so there's elements that you're always going to the gym. You're always in the film room and trying to teach. Now, you're also trying to compete like crazy and you try to find people that also want to compete like crazy.

But you try to find players that lean into learning, that are curious, that want to test themselves to be at the very best. And you try to recruit that way. And if you're doing a good job of recruiting, then you're gonna bring those players in that want to do that.

Fortunately, I've had a staff, a coaching staff that's been around, almost all of them, the entire time I've been here. So we're kind of all on the same page of the types of players that can be successful here.

Grace was telling the story on our drive here of the very first media days of just staying as a high school student and sitting up and watching all of them. What did you say, you couldn't sleep the first couple days before preseason?

Charlie's a volleyball junkie. If you find your own people and the people that kind of fit what it is, which I think we've done a good job with, I don't really notice a difference.

I mean, you've got some transferring and you've got some NIL stuff and things like that. Agents are a little bit more involved, but when you're in the gym and you're around talking with them one-on-one in your office you're in the film room or things, they're the exact same because they want the same things to the players before them.

Q. Grace and Charlie, how do you see your leadership responsibilities evolving this season?

CHARLIE FUERBRINGER: I think for me, it's not changing a lot from last year but just being a come-with-me teammate and kind of being that bridge from the younger athletes. I'm one of the only players who's been here for, what, two years only, but one of the two returners from our season with Sarah Franklin and them, and just kind of being that bridge of what our standard is here at Wisconsin. And trying to guide these girls and bringing them with me. If I'm working out in the gym, trying to get them in there, too, and just showing them what it means to be a Badger.

GRACE EGAN: Yeah, I think leadership has a lot of roles, and I think one is like lead by example and show our experience because we've played in big games. We've played in long games, long seasons. So just showing that and helping them (indiscernible). They have to be a sponge and we can feed them information. They just want to learn more and we want to learn more too so we can learn from them as well.

Q. You emerge as a leader, people outside of your program might not know about yet?

KELLY SHEFFIELD: I think it's probably still a work in progress from people that -- I mean, everybody knows Charlie, right? She's one of the faces of the sport. And Grace is going on her fourth year, and there's natural leadership skills she has.

When you've got 11 new people and so many young, there is an element of trying to get a feel for what this is all about that I think we're probably -- so it's part of what I really, really enjoy about this profession is the growing part of it, the leadership as a part of that growth. I don't know. Check back in with me, I'll be able to answer that a little better.

Q. Charlie, after you got hurt last year, you came back. You might not have been 100 percent but it looked -- you never want to get hurt. What did you take from the time you were out and what did you develop? (Indiscernible).

CHARLIE FUERBRINGER: Yeah, I would agree. So I didn't waste a second that I wasn't -- when I wasn't playing, I just didn't waste a second. I used every single moment to try and get better. I learned from watching my teammates. I saw my hitters' tendencies. That was a huge thing for me being able to see where I could miss for them and what would work worse for them.

Yeah, I think just really trying to soak in every single moment and being very external and still being a big leader helped me stay more engaged throughout the time that I was out because obviously that sucks. I think it really is easy to get super internal in that situation.

But just really leaning on my teammates and knowing that they had my back and that they wanted me to come back so bad and so I was working for them and for our fans and for myself because I wanted to be back.

But I really just think asking the questions I needed to ask, studying film and doing all the things that I could do even though I wasn't able to play just allowed me to come back and be even better than I was before.

Q. Still early on in preseason practice, but what have you seen early on from libero Anna Bardaro? And what should we expect from a player who's new and wasn't with the team in the spring?

KELLY SHEFFIELD: She's jumped right in. I think I'd say every day she's finding her voice. I think being here over the summer was awfully good. She's very, very talented.

I think sometimes you expect somebody that's maybe from another country being a little bit shyer right out of the gate. She's had no problems finding her voice.

I love what's going on in our gym with that position. Kristen Simon -- her tenacity and her drive and her determination, the amount of time she's been in the gym, the lonely hours she's spent in the gym over the summer to get better, that's exactly what you're wanting, is to be able to bring athletes and have some depth and let them rise to the occasion.

So I see two people, two players. We're not very deep in that position, but I think we're extremely talented in that position with those two.

Q. Grace, we didn't see during the spring matches. I'm curious how you're feeling physically. And as you go into your second year as a Badger how you envision your role this year after playing on the right side mostly last year, what's your role on this team?

GRACE EGAN: I would say whatever Kelly needs, I'm ready to play. But I would say took the whole spring and just realized my leadership roles and what I can bring to the team no matter what occasion. I feel like in the preseason I got to start practicing, and I feel like I'm fully back. And I think that's really important for the team to bring that experience on the court. But I mean, whatever role we need to bring is going to be the best fit.

Q. (Off microphone)

CHARLIE FUERBRINGER: Mimi was awesome, Mimi and Carter, two big leaders on our team last year. But without them this year I think we realized that we needed to be the people to step up and to show the younger girls what we need to do in order to get to where we want to be.

And we miss Mimi and Carter a lot. But we need to move on from that and we need to learn from what they taught us and I think we've done a good job of that so far.

GRACE EGAN: I would say Mimi brought a lot of passion with her play and that showed us how to do that. As a hitter, watching her, watching her film and all that stuff. So she helped us as a player.

Q. What do you like most about the competition, how many different players could be impacted this year in those positions?

KELLY SHEFFIELD: It's what you want. I mean, the goal is to have depth. The goal isn't just to have the six or seven players and that's it. When you're recruiting, you're not going and recruiting and telling somebody, here, why don't you come here and be our 17th person. You want people that want to get in the gym. They want to compete with each other.

You've got to lean into it. You've got to -- there's not this great balance with this team as far as here, a fourth of our team or whatever, a fifth of our team is fifth-years and on down.

Sometimes you can have that where a young player can see people older than and say, hey, I'll just wait my turn, wait my time. You like to have players that are hungry, that want to go and mix it up and go right away.

There's not a lot of people, like Charlie was saying, there's not a lot of people that have been around for years. Most of them, we've had a lot of graduation the last two years.

So, they're competing. They're getting after it. They're asking questions. They're leaning into the learning. I think it's going to be a group that people, Badger fans or people who just love volleyball are really going to enjoy watching this group.

There's a variety of personalities on this team, a lot of different personalities. But I think what we look like coming out of the gate -- and these guys are competitive as heck, so, I mean, they're not wanting to wait until October. But I do feel like as we're moving through the season and playing the gauntlet that was in front of us, that the growth should be significant as we're going along.

Q. (Indiscernible) big change from down the road. Are you starting to have those conversations about fifth-years now? And what do you think that rule change is going to do as far as volleyball?

KELLY SHEFFIELD: I've been an advocate for this for a long time. I don't know why it's taken us so long. But there's a lot of things that we do that I don't know why it takes us so long to get to the obvious. Getting rid of waivers and lawsuits and all those things is something that we should all be striving for.

I think the opportunity of if you decide to go at a pace that allows you to get your grad degree, I think that's going to be a game-changer for a lot of people of being able to get that without depth down the road.

One of the tough things is year after year after year for leading up into this for most of the sports, most of the players have gone in knowing that they're gonna go for four years. They just knew that going in.

Every once in a while you had an injury, where somebody would have a medical redshirt. Every once in a while you'd look at somebody who's a freshman and say, hey, why don't you just hold you out right now and so you've got a true redshirt. But the majority of people, by far, they knew they were going to be in college for four years.

Right now, I think what people go in, is it four or be ready to move on? Is it five? And what they think they may want to do might change over time. It's going to be complicated for roster building, just of not knowing. I'm not interested in especially with the roster limits of telling somebody at the last minute, hey, we had a change over here, so we can't do this.

So it's going to make it a little bit more complicated. Have we begun those conversations? I would say lightly began those conversations. Again, nobody's in their final year.

But I think out of respect, the people that have come behind that, we've had a little bit of, hey, let's get this on the radar. This has been something that's changed. We can punt this for down the road if you want to. No big deal, or we can discuss it whenever it is on your timeline.

Q. How fired up are each of you for the opportunity to start off the regular season with the team that ended your season last year?

GRACE EGAN: Yeah, I mean, we're really hungry. I could say that. I mean, it's just how much we've prepared this summer and this entire preseason, but I think we're pretty hungry for this game. I mean, we talk about it a lot, and just like finding good moments and just finding the moments where we can come out strong, and I think this preseason is what we're going to do with that.

CHARLIE FUERBRINGER: Yeah, we're super excited to play Kentucky and our whole preseason schedule, we're just super excited for. And I think we're ready to come out of the gates. We're not going to ease into it. We kind of talked about that the other day. But we're just ready to get after it and battle as hard as we can and fight for those wins in the beginning of the season.

KELLY SHEFFIELD: I don't know if people know how unique how the season is opening up is. I mean, the First Serve events in Milwaukee, you can make an argument. I don't know if I have another event that's had a stronger collection of talent in our sports history than what is going to be under that one roof to start the season.

You know, you don't see other sports that are just going that many elite matches right off the bat. I started this off by talking about being a competitive junkie. If you're a competitive junkie that just loves watching sports, you're going to be in that building watching. You'll have your high school teams, your club teams over there.

So, yeah, we're excited about, there's a great storyline with Kentucky, the two teams that were in the Final Four that are playing against each other, but man, look at the animals that are up and down, that will be for, what, three or four days. It's going to be pretty cool. We're excited that it's only an hour down the road. There will be a lot of Badger fans, I'm sure. What an amazing event to get this thing started.

Q. What have been the first couple of weeks with the new athletic director transition, a lot of the conversation surrounding football and NIL, but what have the conversations been like in terms of the business side for volleyball?

KELLY SHEFFIELD: I think anytime you get somebody new there's always a comparison. I don't like doing that. I don't think there's any story there at all. Really had a great relationship with Chris McIntosh, who's here with the Big Ten Conference. We've had multiple conversations since he got here. Sean has come in, has a different leadership style. And Chris was a different leader than Barry Alvarez, and the person that comes after me will be a different leader than me.

I would say Sean has come in with a lot of energy. A lot of excitement trying to build relationships. There's been a lot of discussions. I don't know if the guy sleeps. I think whether it's the media, whether it's all the head coaches, whether it's talking to staff members, whether it's talking to donors, he's come in, hit the ground rolling.

He came in and is talking to our team. We eventually had to kick him out of the gym because the conversation was going pretty long. And then afterwards, him and Charlie, I don't know if you guys took it over, went and had lunch together or something. But he's been great. Love the energy, excited for the future.