Terry Pettit is a retired American volleyball coach. He was the head women's volleyball coach at Nebraska from 1977 to 1999, where he led the Cornhuskers to the school's first NCAA national championship in 1995. On April 26, Pettit shared this on his social media page - highlighting one of our homegrown athletes!

“Kelly Aspegren, a freshman from Callaway, Nebraska, 'walked on' to the Nebraska Volleyball team in 1991. Anne had seen Kelly play in the Nebraska State High School tournament and was impressed with her athleticism. She suggested that I encourage Kelly to join our program.

Kelly is 5'11' and was primarily a serving substitute for her first two seasons. She was an explosive jumper but an inconsistent attacker until we focused on several strategies to improve her arm speed and footwork.

We had her attack and throw whiffle balls. We had her throw balls heavier than a regulation volleyball. We had her approach on a slight ramp so that she could feel her hips load. We worked on extending the length of her penultimate step so that she was in bodyline when she contacted the ball.

Kelly improved enough to start her junior season. She averaged two kills per set and had an attack percentage of just over .200. The biggest gains came the following season, when we continued to experiment technically and made an adjustment strategically. We decided to leverage her smaller size (when compared to our other attackers) to her advantage. We removed her from passing, which allowed her to appear in a variety of attack zones in serve receive. It helped to have two strong middle attackers (Allison Weston and Jen McFadden) who drew attention away from Kelly and an exceptional setter in Christy Johnson. Kelly averaged over three kills her senior season, hit .345, and earned AVCA All-American honors while leading the team in service aces. So, what was the most important change that led to her success? I don't know for sure. What I do know is that sometimes a coaching staff has to try as many options as possible to help a player reach her potential. Most likely, it was the cumulative effort of all of these things that allowed Kelly to move from a good college attacker to an exceptional attacker. It also helps to have a player with Kelly's mindset who doesn't give up and continues to believe that someday it will happen.”