Colleen DeLisle '18 Recruiting Profile

I will spend the summer of 2018 at Basic Training & Advanced Individual Training as a member of the Army National Guard. Because training is 20 weeks, I will not be able to start school in the all of 2018. I do plan on attending college & studying Social Work. My MOS in the Army is Military Police.

I am not afraid of hard work.  I regularly set goals and then work to achieve them.  The summer before my sophomore year I decided that I wanted to be a varsity player.  Every day that summer, with few exceptions, I either played volleyball, did shoulder or jump work, or worked on technique.  I made the varsity team and was a varsity starter by the second tournament.  I use this same work ethic to work for my team.  When I began in volleyball, I was a libero.  Then, I grew 7 inches in 8 months so I became a middle.  My freshman team needed a setter, so I learned to set a 5:1; my last club team needed a setter and an outside so I worked on both making the high performance training team for my region; my varsity team needed an outside who could play back row so I played there; and my current club team moved me from outside to a setter/opposite in a 6:2 system.  I love the game and want my team to be successful.  To make that happen, I will do what the team and coach needs, being versatile on the court and building up others for success.

Off the court, I work as hard for people who are less fortunate.  I have spent many years working in the inner city of Milwaukee with reading and feeding programs, coat and warm clothing drives, book drives, and have traveled to Haiti and the Lakota Sioux reservations to help with construction, education, and programs there.  I know I am not the center of the universe, but I want to make a positive impact in it.  That is why I want to find the right volleyball AND academic program.   I was a Hartwell Scholar at Duke University after spending 3 summer terms of 2 weeks each doing dissection, physics, chemistry, engineering, and other sciences.  I am capable of being self sufficient while being part of an academic community and will bring this same work ethic, sense of accountability, responsibility, and success with me wherever I go.   My leadership skills, coupled with the physical & advanced training received in the military will be an asset anywhere.