Cougars volleyball coach immediately saw leadership qualities in Russell

It took Cardinal Mooney High indoor volleyball Head Coach Allan Knight just one practice with his new team to name his captains for the year. 

It was early August and Knight, who’d been named the Cougars' coach in June, was just getting acclimated to the program. It didn’t take long for senior outside hitter Izzy Russell to stand out to him. 

“I saw her focus on the court and her complete game along with her maturity and her leadership with the younger players right away,” said Knight. “She made an immediate impression on me.”

Knight didn’t know that Russell, who also stars on Cardinal Mooney’s beach volleyball team, had been a captain the year before. He didn’t know much about Russell at all, outside of meeting her earlier in the summer at an open gym and watching her that day at indoor volleyball tryouts. He just knew, from his 25 years spent coaching at the high school and collegiate levels, what a leader looked like.

Russell fit the image. 

Photo by Ryan Kohn

Knight’s confidence in Russell was well-rewarded. Russell helped power Cardinal Mooney to a 22-5 record and a Class 3A-District 11 championship, leading the team in kills and serving aces. 

Russell, who committed to play beach volleyball at Austin Peay State University in September, is nearing the end of an incredibly successful high school volleyball career, with just Cardinal Mooney’s beach volleyball season standing between her and graduation. 

It’s a journey that has coincided with Russell’s growth into adulthood — volleyball has been the center of the senior’s life since she started playing the sport at 13 years old. 

When Russell went to her first volleyball camp, she was the last person to expect that five years later she would be signing a commitment to play the sport at a Division 1 university. Russell had just dropped out of tennis and was looking for a new sport to join. 

A friend convinced her to attend a volleyball camp at her school, a decision Russell immediately regretted. 

“I absolutely hated it. I cried the entire time and was just stressed out, because not only was learning the new sport difficult, but all the girls already knew each other and I didn’t know anybody,” said Russell.

Russell, however, came back the next day and the day after that. What she found was a sport that rewarded effort and team work, where every point offered the chance to wipe the slate clean from the previous play. 

Russell quickly emerged as an elite outside hitter on both the indoor court and on the beach, playing for Cardinal Mooney’s varsity teams during the school seasons and on club teams throughout the year. 

Russell’s game, interestingly enough, is defined by what she is not — which is tall. At 5-foot-10, Russell is decidedly undersized for the prototypical outside hitter on an indoor volleyball team. Without the height or wingspan of taller girls, Russell has been forced to make an impact with her tenacity and unyielding motor. 

While Russell brings a complete game to the indoor court as an excellent passer and hitter, said Knight, her defense is where she makes her biggest impact during matches.

“Her defense won so many matches for us this year because she’s the kind of player that will just sacrifice her body to make sure that nothing hits the floor. She kept us in rallies that normally our opponents would win,” said Knight. “I think it’s the characteristic of somebody really special that has taken it upon themselves to give everything to their team. It’s a never-say-die leadership quality that young volleyball players should emulate.”

Photo by Ryan Kohn

As Russell fell more in love with the game, playing at the collegiate level became a priority. College recruiting for Russell began at the end of her sophomore year — while colleges weren’t allowed to contact Russell until the end of her junior year, she was allowed to email schools from across the country that interested her with the hopes of having them attend one of the countless camps and showcases she was playing.

“I used to send hundreds of emails every weekend and you get answers for maybe two of them. One is, 'sorry you’re too short' and the other is asking you to come to a camp that’s really just a money-grab for the schools,” said Russell. “Now that I’m committed, I’m looking back and seeing how much I gave up for those first three years of high school. I didn’t do any extracurricular activities. I wasn’t social at all, I had one friend who was also on the volleyball team. I trained every day, worked out every day before practice and sent emails on the weekends.”

The recruiting process, which Russell calls the most stressful experience of her entire life, is hardly as glamorous as the internet and social media have made it out to be. It’s a delicate dance between player and prospective coach — is the player the right fit for the program? Does the school fit the player’s needs, academically and socially? 

“There’s this process that the girls go through of just constantly communicating with these coaches and gauging their interest levels. As a player, you don’t know if the coach has moved on to somebody else and as a coach, you wonder the same thing,” Knight said. “There’s a lot of stress involved in figuring all of this out. Collegiate and professional athletes all have agents doing this for them. For high school athletes, it’s just them and their parents managing all of this.”

Russell’s fortune started to turn over the summer leading up to her senior year. While initially harboring dreams of playing indoor volleyball, her shorter stature made it difficult for Russell to get the attention she wanted from indoor coaches. 

In the sand, however, Russell’s height didn’t matter and her unyielding effort paid dividends while playing alongside a partner. 

Russell began attracting attention from colleges following her junior beach volleyball season, in which the Cougars went 19-3. Over the summer, Russell doubled down on contacting collegiate beach volleyball coaches, with the hopes of getting a look prior to her senior year. 

Even still, she wasn’t receiving interest from the schools she was looking to play for. 

“I sent out my last beach volleyball email at the start of the summer and didn’t hear back, so I figured this was a sign that I was going to be finished with beach,” said Russell. “Three months later, I got a text from my coach at Austin Peay State explaining that his emails hadn’t been sending and that he’d love to have me up for a visit. We really clicked and a little over a month later, I committed.”