October 7, 2008
Ram Spotlight, a new addition to VCUathletics.com will bring Black and Gold fans a weekly feature on student-athletes, coaches and staff. It will allow Rams fans to get to know the great students and people that make up the VCU athletics family.
THE PERFECT MATCH: THE KELSIE CLEGG STORY
How the volleyball standout found everything she needed in VCU
Virginia Commonwealth University volleyball coach James Finley has contacts in the sport all around the world. That’s reflected in the makeup of his team’s roster.
One place where Finley admits he’s a little short on knowledge is Boise, Idaho. Yet one of the Rams’ top players is from there.
Kelsie Clegg, a former basketball and volleyball standout at Boise Senior High, found VCU. Finley is more grateful for that every day, as he watches the 6-foot-5 middle blocker and talented artist develop on and off the court.
“Kelsie is really coming on as a strong player, and she’s doing very well in school,” Finley said.
It is 2,433.47 miles from Boise to Richmond, says Mapquest.com. Clegg is a long way from home. That’s by design. As she prepared for her final year of high school, Clegg came up with a list of things she was looking for in a college choice. VCU earned check marks in all the right places.
First, Clegg had to pick a sport. It wasn’t an easy call. She had interest from colleges in both basketball and volleyball. Her parents, Brett and Elaine Clegg, are former basketball players at Boise State University, where they met. Clegg thinks she was good enough to compete at the Division I level in that sport.
She picked volleyball.
“I think my parents were leaning toward (basketball),” Clegg said. “I was on the fence. Once I got to my senior year, I realized I wasn’t the right personality to play basketball. All the skills were there. All the motivation was there. Basketball to me, all the girls I played with and against were really aggressive. They need that drive. It’s more of an individual sport. You have to have that drive within you I felt like I never had. Basketball is a team sport but I felt it more in volleyball. I liked that more.”
Clegg’s next mission was to find a school that sponsored volleyball and was also strong in art. VCU waves a huge flag there, with a successful volleyball program and a nationally recognized art school.
Distance was a factor. An adventuresome and independent sort, Clegg wanted to experience a new corner of the country. She wanted to see the east.
“Going somewhere different was a big thing,” she said.
So, too, was diversity. VCU also scores big there, in the school and on the volleyball roster. Finley’s current team has players from the U.S. and three other countries. This year, he added to the diverse mix by hiring assistants Yue Liu of China and Antonio Pavlov of Bulgaria.
“It is such a big world out there and I wanted to experience something different,” Clegg said. “This team is so diverse and I think world awareness is a really important thing. I have teammates from all over the world *** it is fun to come in and become friends with them, to create bonds that will last a lifetime. There’s some hard parts – translations, different customs. But that’s part of what makes it cool. You learn how to work through all that. That has really made me grow and that’s probably the main thing I wanted.”
Finley was intrigued enough by the tape Clegg sent to make his way to Boise for a look. He liked what he saw.
“I really liked where she could get to because she was a good athlete and she worked hard,” Finley said.
Clegg came the other way to get a look at VCU.
“I visited here and I liked it,” Clegg said. “The city is cool and the diversity is awesome.”
Less than halfway through her academic and athletic career, Clegg remains enthusiastic about her choice on both ends.
She’s working in a variety of mediums. She can draw. She’s into artistic photography. Her goal is to work in advertising, graphic design or both.
“Art has always been important to me because I feel like it is in me,” she said. “It is kind of cliché but as an artist you feel like you have a perspective that no one else has. You can be Andy Warhol and not have the same ideas as Kelsie Clegg. I want to go into advertising – what I want to do with it I’m not totally sure. I’d be content on an advertising team or just part of a graphic design team.”
Finley is one of her biggest fans.
“She really is an extremely talented artist,” Finley said. “She’s very creative.”
On the court, she’s becoming more of a factor with each match. Through the Rams’ first 16 matches, Clegg’s hitting percentage of .289 was the best on the team. That ranked her seventh in the Colonial Athletic Association. She was fourth in the league with 1.05 blocks per set (teammate Ivana Rich was the league leader at 1.30 per set).
“The bottom line is she’s 6-5. You can’t teach that. Her hands are above the net before she jumps,” Finley said. “But there’s much more to it than that. She’s really developed her arm swing. She has good court vision. She’s able to place the ball where it needs to be to get it on the floor. Her velocity is improving and she’s really grown as a blocker. There’s a lot to blocking besides just being over the net.”
Said Clegg, “I feel pretty good. I don’t think last year I would have expected to be doing this well at this point. My hitting percentage is my biggest improvement. Last year, I made a lot of mistakes by hitting into the blocker and things like that. It’s more of a mental improvement – knowing where to hit it when you’re up there.”
Finley said Clegg is becoming more of a vocal leader as her confidence grows. She’s become “kind of our team psychologist,” Finley said, ready to lend an ear or a helping hand to any of her teammates.
Her passion is clear when she speaks about the team. That team, she said, made the adjustment easier when she arrived across the country more than 2,000 miles from home.
“Being part of a team makes it so much easier,” Clegg said. “You have a support system around you. I had 14-15 instant friends.”
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