How this 'volleyball machine' has shown so much more in Purdue's surprise season

WEST LAFAYETTE — It took an extra couple of years, but Kenna Wollard is finally living out the dream she’s worked her whole life for.

It didn’t come without two of the most challenging years of her life, but it allowed her to leave a transformational legacy built on loyalty, fortitude and a caring heart. Her three-year journey ascending to Purdue volleyball’s next star has had a profound impact on 67-year-old coach Dave Shondell, even to the point he was choked up when asked about her importance earlier this season.

He’s admitted his coaching style has changed with this year’s Boilermakers, who are 26-6 and play SMU at 9:30 p.m. Thursday in the Sweet 16 — this berth perhaps his most improbable. He may not have known it, but a conversation he had with Wollard encapsulates her development and this team.

“’I want you to be an ass,’” Wollard’s father, Jason, recalled Shondell saying, wanting Kenna to play with more intensity. “I was thinking to myself, it’s going to be tough for her. She’s just not that type of person.

“She kills you with her smile.”

Wollard played her first two seasons out of position at opposite/right side, perhaps a nod to how talented she was that Shondell and his staff wanted her on the court that badly. But she walks around the court this season with confidence, back as a six-rotation outside hitter, like the elite player she became that drew Purdue’s interest during her high school recruitment.

That an All-American was standing in the shadows of All-Americans for two seasons speaks volumes to who Wollard is, seemingly never complaining about her role.

She was named an AVCA player of the year semifinalist, one of the top 14 players this season, and was named Tuesday the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s Midwest Region Player of the Year.

Wollard is part of a junior class that led the Boilermakers to a third-place finish in the Big Ten and a third straight Sweet 16 — remarkable given they were picked seventh after returning 7.5% of their total offense from last season.

This journey, though, challenged one of Wollard’s greatest strengths: her mental toughness. She was held captive by a college sports landscape that has long suppressed talent but her response in those moments highlighted precisely why this breakout season was possible.

“It’s one of the things that I completely admire about her,” Wollard’s mother, Kristie Warfield, said.

To understand why Wollard stayed in an era of player empowerment through the transfer portal and name, image and likeness, one has to go back to her upbringing in a small village in Illinois. But first, here are the challenges she took on.

Chloe Chicoine, Eva Hudson’s impact on Kenna Wollard at Purdue volleyball

Wollard committed to Purdue on July 18, 2021. Shondell and his staff called her every day coaches were permitted by NCAA recruiting rules to talk with her that summer before her sophomore year in high school until she committed. She was rated No. 64 nationally by PrepDig. Purdue had high hopes for her.

“We were told — I think every coach is going to say a lot of these things to you — ‘We want her to be a six-rotation player. She can be an All American,’” Jason told IndyStar in a hotel lobby. “It’s kind of a game because they’ve wanted her, and he’s going to say everything he can to get her here. Not that it wasn’t true, but obviously, then you have things happen.”

Fast forward eight months and two other players committed at Wollard’s position: McCutcheon’s Chloe Chicoine on Feb. 11, 2022 and Fort Wayne Bishop Dwenger’s Eva Hudson on March 15, 2022. Chicoine, the top-rated recruit in the class of 2023 per PrepDig, had previously decommitted from Penn State after legendary coach Russ Rose retired. Hudson, rated No. 110 by PrepDig, flipped her commitment from Notre Dame.

“Oh my gosh, they’re two amazing players, two great people,” Wollard said, recalling her reaction.

Wollard enrolled a semester early, a Purdue student starting January 2023, knowing she had to improve to win her position. But it became evident that she’d be challenged in a new way.

“Once I realized I’m not going to be able to play outside, it was a lot harder and definitely not what I expected and at the end of those two years I was just like, ‘Wow, this is not what I saw for myself at all,’” she said.

Shondell allowed her to find that out herself, simply asking how she was going to get on the court her freshman season.

“She was just somebody who was trying to figure out how to survive in a situation that was a little bit different than she expected,” Shondell said.

Wollard played 153 sets across 52 matches, tallying 207 kills with an efficiency of .189 across those seasons at opposite/right side — getting double the playing time and production her sophomore season as Grace Heaney recovered from an injury. There was discomfort, Warfield said, in that her daughter “wanted to help her team, and she didn’t know if she always was.”

It was a rarity for Wollard, who radiates joy and her presence uplifts anyone she meets.

And yet such a caring person — Jason told several stories of how Kenna would want to help strangers as she went about everyday life — found herself needing to be supported.

“I remember last year and the year before, there would be times where I would come in afterwards and just be so upset and so down by myself and they were like, ‘We will never falter, our belief in you, our confidence in you.’ So you just have to believe in yourself, and I think that was the biggest thing,” Wollard said, acknowledging a sports psychologist helped her. “It’s all about what’s in my head. I don’t have to worry about what other people are thinking, or what they may see of me, but I just have to remember what I believe and how I’m thinking in my mind will dictate how I may feel.”

Kenna Wollard is hugged by teammates Dior Charles, clockwise, Grace Heaney and Ryan McAleer as Taylor Anderson and Julia Kane celebrate Purdue's point against Indiana the Monon Spike match Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. — Kenna Wollard is hugged by teammates Dior Charles, clockwise, Grace Heaney and Ryan McAleer as Taylor Anderson and Julia Kane celebrate Purdue’s point against Indiana the Monon Spike match Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

How Kenna Wollard’s upbringing shaped her mentality

The Wollard family is naturally gifted athletically. Jason played baseball at Illinois and stands 6 foot 5. Warfield swam at Illinois and is comparable to her 6-1 daughter. Kamden, Kenna’s older brother, was a multi-sport athlete at Illinois Valley Central High School in Chillicothe, Illinois, where Kenna finished her career second in IHSA history in kills with 1,814 and was a three-time Peoria Journal Star player of the year.

Each have had an impact on shaping Wollard’s mental toughness, positivity and caring heart to pair with her athletic ability — pushed by her brother Kamden. Though each family member laughs now about how he expressed himself with technical fouls, he not only challenged Kenna athletically growing up but continues to while being supportive — one of the things Jason said he’s proudest of, and Kristie said motivates Kenna.

“(My mom’s) always taught us to be very humble. Especially in high school, I had issues with that sometimes,” Kamden said, laughing, “but Kenna has always pretty much been a mirror image of her mom and just always humble, always praising everybody else basically just always wanting to give it to someone else.”

She’s “very competitive-natured,” though, she’ll tell you. That started in second grade, growing up in the village of Dunlap, Illinois (pop. 1,448), when Wollard started playing volleyball. That’s the sport she stars in, but it may not be what she was best at. Kamden and Warfield believed swimming was her best sport growing up, and Wollard won the seventh-grade state high jump event, leaping 4-11.

Those formative years, though, pushed Wollard as she homed in on volleyball. She played at top clubs, challenged by having to make new friends, playing out of position at least once, and committing herself to a student-athlete lifestyle everyone else in her family had known.

“I always really pushed her. I could see early with her that she had the talent but you have to have the passion, and then you also have to have the drive,” Warfield said. “I never let her back down from anything. I wanted to put her at the best club. … I always took that approach with her, and I really just think that helped make her tough because she just didn’t back down from stuff.”

Illinois Valley Central junior Kenna Wollard is the 2021 Journal Star Volleyball Player of the Year.

Wollard isn’t overly serious about any given moment, her father said. It’s not a coincidence that the baseball player in the family has had a big impact on her mental makeup, too. Pick any one of these baseballisms Jason shared and it can be applied to volleyball:

“Don’t get too high, don’t get too low.”
“Take things with a grain of salt.”
“The beautiful thing about sports is you’re always going to get another chance.”

Sure, they apply to many things in life but are often phrases used in sport. Mental makeup can bring an ability to reset, not dwell on mistakes and play with confidence. Consider a career .300 batting average is considered a Hall of Fame career, and Wollard is hitting .253 and is among the top-14 college volleyball players nationally this season — sports where failure is expected require mental toughness.

“Sometimes you just gotta let your athletic ability take over because the amount of reps they take week in and week out, just let that work for you,” Jason said.

For her first two years at Purdue, though, that was difficult to push through. Loyalty proved to be difficult, too, but the basis of loyalty is how someone responds through times when they are challenged most.

There were thoughts of transferring — including a tense moment before she even played a game, Jason said — but the challenge was through a lens of loyalty and proving she belonged and could continue to chase her Big Ten dream.

“This is a great place for you. You don’t know what’s going to happen,” Jason recalled telling Kenna.

Chicoine and Hudson, though, brought a catch-22: stay at Purdue, play out of position with challenges and new feelings — “During the season, there’d be times where I’d be really upset, down on myself, and I’d be like, ‘Why am I letting this get me so upset,’ there were so many times when I’m like, ‘Wow, I’ve never been in this state of mind before,’” Wollard said — or look for opportunity elsewhere.

Why didn’t she transfer? “Um, well, those two both transferred,” she said, smiling. Opportunity to move to her natural outside hitter position opened. But also:

“I really, really, really did not want to leave Purdue. I loved the school, and I loved the coaching staff. I love the culture. I love everything about this program. It was obviously just a really hard position that I was put in my first two years. So, I really, really, really didn’t want to transfer.”

Purdue Boilermakers middle blocker Raven Colvin (7), setter Taylor Anderson (5) and outside hitter Kenna Wollard (4) celebrate Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, during the NCAA women’s volleyball match against the Penn St. Nittany Lions at Holloway Gymnasium in West Lafayette, Ind. Penn St. Nittany Lions won 3-0.

How Olympian Annie Drews challenged Kenna Wollard

The banners hanging over the team benches at Holloway Gymnasium are reserved for Purdue volleyball royalty. Two players whose names were on those banners came up in conversations prior to a practice.

Grace Cleveland grew up roughly 55 miles away from Wollard in Normal, Illinois. Using her as an example was part of Shondell’s recruiting pitch to Wollard, who admits she only became familiar with Cleveland after she committed to Purdue.

Those banners are reserved for first-team AVCA All-Americans, and Wollard is seemingly the next to push for one. Cleveland’s was the last one raised. Regardless of whether Wollard gets that achievement this year or next, Shondell sees similarities between the two.

“It’s never about them, it’s about the team, it’s about who’s helping them get where they need to go,” he said. “They are a lot alike in that regard, just two of the greatest young women we’ve ever had here at Purdue.”

One other banner hangs, though, and it’s for Olympian Annie Drews. The Elkhart native supports the program by attending matches or speaking to the team when she can. Drews has been instrumental to Wollard’s growth.

“Annie came in last year, before one of our games, and she kind of talked about the mental aspect and just training your mind as hard as you would train your body,” Wollard said. “And I thought that stuck with me, and that was really special.”

She had a career-high 33 kills in a five-set win over UCLA. Albeit in a losing effort, she impressed with 14 kills while hitting .290 against No. 1 Nebraska (32-0), something Indiana coach Steve Aird pointed out in explaining how good she is.

“Obviously, she’s a great attacker. I mean, she worked us for sure,” Nebraska’s Harper Murray, fellow national player of the year semifinalist, said. “She was hitting all over the court and we adjusted to that. She’s a great all-around player and I’m really impressed with her and I’m really proud of her, too.”

Nebraska coach Dani Busboom Kelly said that Wollard has all the tools, can hit anywhere on the court and is really physical, “so you might scout one thing (and) she comes out and does something else.”

But Shondell’s challenge to get the most out of Wollard got back to his point of playing as tough as she is mentally.

“One of the things I wanted her to do is be the hardest hitter in the Big Ten. So, I wanted to give her something to think about, some kind of goal,” Shondell said. “She thumps the ball. She’s an athlete, and kind of a volleyball machine.

“In my opinion, we haven’t seen by far the best of her, because I think that once she learns to really gain real confidence in her complete game, she becomes one of the best complete players in the country, for sure.”

Purdue Junior Kenna Wollard (4) smashes the ball through some fingers for a point during the NCAA volleyball match between the Washington Huskies at the Purdue Boilermakers, Thursday, Sep. 25, 2025, at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind. Purdue won 3-0 in straight sets.

And that’s because he still wants to see her improve in several areas: becoming craftier with her shots, using offspeed to keep blockers off-balance — particularly helpful for shorter hitters, he said — and her passing out of the back row.

Wollard has led by character and action more than words. She said being more vocal is a focus for her, putting to practice what she learned from Raven Colvin and Ali Hornung.

She showed that on Halloween at the Breslin Center after Purdue blew a 2-0 lead. She leaned into the team bench and gave a pep talk to the Boilers before the coaches came into the huddle.

“I guess it worked,” she joked after taking command in the fifth set. That was Purdue’s ninth road win as it ended up 10-2 in road games, and 14-2 away from home.

Wollard is living her dream. She was second in the Big Ten with 539 kills and third in kills per set (4.38) while hitting .253 with 1.95 digs per set. And she helped the Boilermakers to a third straight Sweet 16.

“It’s anything I could ask for,” she said.

She’s a “sweet beast,” her father said, and by all accounts it’s been a gratifying experience nobody would change. When Shondell got choked up about her, it was largely about loyalty shown in the toughest moments.

Insider: Dave Shondell was ready to retire, how ‘ever grateful’ Purdue reenergized him

He invested plenty of time recruiting her, and didn’t anticipate how things would change after she committed. He continued to coach her and show up for her, and she showed up for him, the staff, her teammates and Purdue.

“… But when you get two players, that kind of make their decisions or reverse course, like they did, and then they’re here and she’s here, and yet she has to kind of move to a different spot. But she did it,” he said.

“She was happy to do it, and you never saw any indication that she was not happy to do that. But more than that, she’s just an amazing human being — that you would like your program to be represented by those kind of people.

“… She is now evolving into just a great spokeswoman for our team — somebody our fans admire and look up to, our teammates look up to … You’re not going to notice her really telling people what to do but, when it has to happen, she will do that, because of her care that she has and the love she has for her team.”

And she’s still doing it with a killer smile.

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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why Kenna Wollard stayed at Purdue volleyball with Chloe Chicoine, Eva Hudson

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