When the Wisconsin volleyball team was bounced from the NCAA Tournament by Texas A&M last December, the standout career of Morgan Shields came to a close. As Shields wrapped up her collegiate career, Jackie Simpson was putting the finishing touches on high school.
Fast forward several months and Simpson is now vying to fill the void left in the Badger lineup by Shields’ graduation. After signing with Wisconsin in the fall, Simpson decided to graduate a semester early and enroll in classes at UW, allowing her to participate in the Badgers’ spring practices.
“I made a commitment last February to come, and that obviously was to be for the fall,” Simpson said. “But then, as I was looking at my schedule for my senior year, I realized I had enough credits to graduate early, so I talked to the coaches and we decided it would work best for me if I could do that and come up early and start training and playing with the team, just get used to college life before the fall.”
A 6-foot-1 setter from Downers Grove South High School in Illinois, Simpson is battling returning freshman Katie Lancing-Lorenzen for the starting position in 2004. Serving as Shields’ backup in 2003, Lorenzen appeared in four games, averaging 3.50 assists per game.
“There’s definitely an opportunity,” Simpson said. “Katie’s a great setter and she’s actually helped me a lot with the transition to college life and playing here. She’s been a good help to me and it will just be interesting to see what happens.”
Tabbed first team all-state by the Chicago Tribune and Champaign News Gazette as a senior, Simpson was more than prepared to close that chapter of her life and move on to the next.
“I was ready to get out of high school,” she said. “I had been up here a bunch of times on visits — countless times since sophomore year of high school, so I pretty much knew this was the place I wanted to be. I do have the option to go back for prom and graduation, and I definitely want to go to graduation. I think it’s the weekend before finals, so I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not, but we’ll see.”
In addition to her exploits at Downers Grove South, Simpson was selected to the 2002 USA Volleyball High Performance A2 team. Furthermore, while playing for the Sports Performance Volleyball Club, she took home a gold medal from the 2003 National Junior Olympics.
“Jackie’s very competitive. She’s come out of a great background through her high school team,” Wisconsin head coach Pete Waite said. “Downers Grove South is a very strong high school team, and her club team program is very strong. So, we’re excited to have her here. It’s unique for us to have a player in this early. I don’t know if we call her a sub-freshman, or what she really is, but we’ll have her in for six months before we even start the season next year, so that’s just great experience.”
Due to her height, Simpson brings a defensive presence to the court, adding size to a Wisconsin block that struggled at times in 2003.
“Most would say that I’m a physical player,” she said. “Most setters are usually smaller sized; I’m 6-foot. I love blocking. That’s probably one of my favorite parts of the game, just getting up there and trying to get a touch on the ball.”
As she works on adjusting to the speed of the college game in spring practice, Simpson is also adjusting to life in a college classroom, which she admits was a tad surprising to her. “I was actually quite shocked because I was expecting big lecture halls for everything,” she said, “and I actually have a couple of classes that are kind of small. My English class is really small. I’ve met at least one person in every class, so I can get information if I miss something. It hasn’t been bad so far. I like my professors.”
When she graduates, Simpson would like to become a college coach, so she is considering creating her own major at UW.
“There’s this option you can do through the education department where you get a professor to sponsor your major,” she said. “It has to be a unique thing, so for me I would want to take stuff from psychology, sociology and kinesiology and spice them all together because I want to be a college coach. It would be a good little mixture of things.”
Before Simpson enters the coaching profession, however, she would like to impress her current head coach enough to take over the setting duties at Wisconsin.
“We’ve got two very good setters and right now they’re both working hard,” Waite said. “We’ll find out through the spring training who’s most consistent, who takes the team to the most wins, basically. We’ve got to find out who has the best chemistry with the team and delivers the most hittable ball.”
