Kaylee Manns Rookie Year in Review: Part One

Former Cyclone All-American setter Kaylee Manns recently completed her first year of professional volleyball in Switzerland. Over the next few weeks, Manns will be recounting some of her experiences with FKB Düdingen for Cyclones fans.

Hey Cyclones!

As some of you may know, I just arrived back to the United States from an adventure-filled eight months playing professional volleyball in Europe.

I'm hoping to fill you all in on some of my experiences on and off the court. I know I'll be leaving lots out. Eight months is a good chunk of time, but I hope to catch you all up on volleyball life outside the U.S.

I was, overall, pretty happy with my first professional season. I had absolutely no idea what to expect, so the experience and knowledge I gained during my eight months as a rookie have taught me so much about what to expect for next season.

The player makeup of FKB Düdingen was a big change from Iowa State and from the NCAA in general. The ages of my teammates ranged from 18-32, which is a much larger gap from the college age range of about 17-24. One of the girls on the team, was an Olympic bronze medalist with Cuba, and I also played with the tallest twins in the world, Ann and Claire Recht, who attended American University in Washington D.C.

Most often when I think about my Swiss team, two words come to mind: language barrier. Within the 11-girl roster we had: one Cuban, two Brazilians, one Pole, three Americans, one German, and three Swiss. With all these different nationalities there was not one common language so translators were necessary during practices and matches. When you add the fact that Switzerland has four national languages (French, German, Italian and Romansh), it was very difficult to really get a feel for what coaches wanted and expected of me.

The team finished in the middle of the pack out of the 10 teams in Switzerland. During the season's final tournament, we made it to the semi-finals but lost during a best-of-three series in the third game. Most games were played on the weekends and, just like in the Big 12, we played each team twice, home and away.

During the season, we had practice seven times a week. On Wednesday and Friday, we had a practice mixed in with weights, physio and rehab. Tuesdays and Thursdays we doubled-up with two practices and Monday was our scheduled day off.

That's all for now! Go Cyclones!
Kaylee

Iowa State University Athletics

Kaylee Manns Rookie Year in Review: Part One

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