Kelsey Chipman’s life has always revolved around sports.
    Whether it took place on the volleyball court or the basketball court, the Topeka native often could be seen honing her athletic skills throughout her childhood.
    “I think [my parents] just really tried to get me in early with sports,” said Chipman, junior middle blocker on the K-State volleyball team. “I played pretty much every kind of sport. That’s just something that they wanted me to get interested in at a young age.”
    Chipman’s athletic lifestyle continued during her four years at Washburn Rural High School, where she flourished as a two-sport standout.
    However, after being named to the all-city basketball and volleyball teams in her sophomore and junior seasons, she decided to hang up her basketball shoes and turn her attention to the net.
    “She didn’t go out for basketball her senior year because she wanted to focus on volleyball,” said Kevin Bordewick, Chipman’s high school volleyball coach.
    Bob Chipman, Kelsey’s father and the Washburn University men’s basketball coach, said she had been nursing an injury, and their family thought a break would help her in the long run.
    “She had chipped a bone in her elbow during the summer before her senior year,” he said. “Doctors were telling her to lay off, but she played the high school season with the injury and then decided not to go out for basketball. I’m so glad she had a little break there for a couple of months where she could just be a student.”
    Bordewick, who has coached at Washburn Rural for 14 seasons, said Chipman was a major factor in the school’s success during her tenure.             “She’s been on two of the best teams that Washburn Rural has ever had,” he said. “She was extremely hard working and a great leader for us. I just can’t say enough good things about her.”
    That hard work paid off, as Chipman began to receive scholarship offers from schools across the nation.
    “[I talked to] Purdue and quite a few Big 12 schools, but I knew I wanted to play in Kansas,” said Chipman. “It basically came down to K-State and Purdue.”
    She got her wish, as her dominant play caught the attention of Wildcat head coach Suzie Fritz.
    “We watched her quite a bit as a sophomore, but it really wasn’t until her junior year where we felt like she started to really emerge into a player who could play at this level,” said Fritz. “It happened very quickly. All of the sudden, the light came on for her, and she had a breakthrough as a player.”
    Three years later, Chipman has developed into a leader for the nationally ranked Wildcats — she ranks near the top of the roster in blocks and kills per game — but despite her dominance in recent years, she was a late bloomer on the volleyball court.
    “She started at about age seven and wasn’t successful, so she gave it up for a few years,” said her father. “She picked up again when she was about 10, but she still struggled.”
    He jokingly said that an act of bribery might have led to his daughter’s increase in skill.
    “It was her seventh-grade year and she still couldn’t hit an overhead serve,” he said. “I told her that the day she got a Division I scholarship, I would buy her a Corvette. Believe it or not, she was jump serving by the end of the season.
    “Luckily, I was able to talk her out of that deal later on.”
    Corvette or not, Fritz thinks Chipman has improved drastically. The eighth-year coach said she continues to see improvement at the collegiate level and hopes Chipman’s skills will keep getting better.
    “She’s a much better attacker and a significantly better blocker,” said Fritz. “When she came to us, her ball-control skills were medium at best, so I think she’s improved immensely. Hopefully, she’ll continue to improve in the future as well.”

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cody

Thu Dec 4 2008 12:52

Justin Nutter rules

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