Abbie Brown was a smalltown Iowa girl, part of a graduating class of 50. But she was also a high school volleyball star, a prime time talent who got recruited by the best college programs in the country.
Major universities flew her to their campuses and offered her scholarships. Kansas State University's coach even invited Abbie's whole high school team to a private instructional camp. Abbie liked that, and she liked Kansas State. So she enrolled there in the fall of 1996.
"The volleyball was great." Abbie says. "The highlight of my day was on the court."
Kansas State went 26-9 that season and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Abbie was named runner-up for Freshman of the Year in the Big 12 Conference. But she wasn't happy.
"I started to feel like this wasn't where I was supposed to be," she says. "My teammates would ask, 'What's wrong?' And I just knew this wasn't what I wanted for my life, that there was more to life than volleyball."
Abbie almost transferred at the end of the season, and finally did leave at the end of the year. She missed her family, her boyfriend, and the intimacy of a small, close-knit community. She transferred to Central College, a non-scholarship Christian school in Pella, Iowa, where her older sister had played volleyball.
"In high school I went to my sister's games. One time, Central's coach told me, 'Know that we want you. But we're not going to recruit you, because we know you're probably not going to go here.' She was right—I never even thought about it. I knew I was a better volleyball player than Division III."
Abbie's skills hadn't diminished when she arrived at Central in 1997. The difference was her priorities: She wanted the time to explore life beyond the court, and she wanted a smalltown, family atmosphere. She got both.
Volleyball practices were now two hours, including weightlifting, instead of three hours plus lifting. And not only was Abbie closer to her parents and her boyfriend, she was on a team that emphasized more than volleyball.
"Our focus is to help these young women build relationships with each other, with their coaches, and with Christ," says Megan Clayberg, Central's coach. "That keeps things in the right perspective, because volleyball is just a game.
"We want these young women to know that they are loved and cared about, and that means more to their sense of self-worth than being an All-American or a starter."
Nonetheless, Abbie was a first-team Division III All-American her sophomore season. She helped Central to a 36-5 record and a third-place finish in the Division III tournament. And when the volleyball season ended, Abbie took advantage of another opportunity a small school can offer: cross training. She joined the basketball team, and was named second-team All-Conference.
More importantly, her faith was growing. "I honestly didn't think much about the environment when I decided on Kansas State—I knew I was a strong enough Christian that I wasn't going to do anything stupid. But I didn't end up growing at all. At Central, the Christian environment became important."
For the first time, Abbie found herself talking about her faith—comfortably, informally, with friends and teammates. Her Christian faith became something wonderful and powerful to share, instead of a list of sins to avoid.
"I wanted to know more about God," Abbie says, "and at Central, I had time to pray more, to read more, and chances to talk about Jesus and my relationship with him, to try to dig deeper." Abbie also became active in her volleyball team's Bible study. "It was a strong environment where I could learn and grow. I didn't know our faith would be the team's main focus."
Coach Clayberg adds, "I think this is what Abbie needed, honestly. I think most young Christians need this kind of environment."
Meanwhile, Central's volleyball team went 35-2 in Abbie's junior season. The team won the Division III national championship, and she was named national player of the year. Then she led the basketball team in scoring and was named first-team All-Conference.
Even so, Abbie knows her skills on the volleyball court probably don't measure up to the game she might have developed in the Big 12. And she's fine with that.
"Physically, I'm sure I'm not as good as I could've been. But I didn't need that to win and to have fun."
"Abbie is very honest, and she has a real contentment with who she is," says Jason Brown, Abbie's older brother and a staff worker with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Central. "She doesn't need to be a Big 12 star to be OK with herself, or to feel like she's fulfilling something.
"She's cultivated a lot of relationships here that have gone very deep, and she wouldn't have been able to do that if she'd focused solely on volleyball."
Coach Clayberg says that makes Abbie a strong example for Central's volleyball program.
"Volleyball skills are not the essence of who people are," she says. "Abbie is the most competitive athlete I've ever been around, but it doesn't mean everything to her. She's very gifted and very humble."
Abbie led Central to an undefeated regular season her senior year, making her team the undisputed favorite heading into the 2000 NCAA Division III volleyball championships. At a banquet for all the championship teams and players, Abbie did something more difficult for her than any of her highlight plays on the court: She talked about God in front of a large, mostly non-Christian audience.
"To hear Abbie say those things was absolutely amazing when you consider where she was when she got here," says her coach. "I've seen her grow in her faith, in her witness, and the way she glorifies God."
Abbie and her team ended up taking their second straight national championship—this time with a perfect 41-0 record. She also collected her second national player of the year award.
Abbie found what she was looking for at Central. "The people in the Central community showed me they cared about me," Abbie says, "not just as a student and an athlete; they cared about my spiritual growth. They really supported me and wanted to see me succeed."
Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine.
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