Beep. Beep. Beep.

It’s 5:30 in the morning. While the rest of the KU student body sleeps off a hang over from the night before, Jana Correa and the other 10 girls on the University of Kansas volleyball team are waking up for practice.

When the alarm clock sounds, there’s no hitting the snooze button for an extra 10 minutes of sleep. There’s no turning the alarm clock off and deciding that today, you just don’t feel like it. Out of habit and pure dedication, Correa bolts out of her bed in the Jayhawk Towers. She grabs her sweatshirt and sweatpants off the floor where she left them the night before, slips on her yellow and green flip flops with the Brazilian flag gracing the top of the sandal and heads to the bathroom. Eyes heavy with sleep, she grabs her toothbrush and toothpaste. Leaning against the doorframe, eyes closed, to take advantage of every second of rest she can offer her eyes, she brushes her teeth. She pulls her hair back into a messy ponytail, grabs a Slim-Fast shake out of the fridge and heads out the door. Turning back to look at me she says, “I don’t drink this because I want to lose weight, I just drink because I don’t have time to make something to eat.” It is 5:42 a.m.

It is not the volleyball season and no, the team doesn’t have a big game that could determine its hopes of post-season play coming up this week. They are in their spring season, practicing five times a week and strength training three times a week. This is their time to get better and prepare for their trip to Brazil at the end of May. Their regular season begins in August.

Men’s basketball and football are the money sports at the University of Kansas, but there are close to 500 other student athletes who work just as hard and are just as passionate about their game. Volleyball is one of the 13 nonrevenue sports at the University. They have to balance school and athletics while they still try to experience college life.

The journey college student-athletes take is a hard one, regardless of where they come from or what sport they play. Correa’s journey has been one of the hardest. Born in Macapa, Brazil, she grew up playing volleyball. She started playing when she was 11 years old. When she was 15, she left her mom and grandma and moved to São Paulo, Brazil. Picture yourself moving from Kansas City to New York; it’s about the same distance. She moved to São Paulo because she says the volleyball in Macapa wasn’t good and there were no opportunities for her there. “It was hard leaving because it was always just me and my mom, but I had to,” Correa says. Like leaving Macapa, coming to the University was just another of many hard decisions Correa has had to face.

Correa gets to the team room in Horejsi Family Athletics Center at about 5:45 a.m. It is still dark outside, making it even harder to motivate herself for the upcoming two-hour practice. The team room is like a home away from home for the girls on the team; with a big leather couch, two leather chairs, a TV, a refrigerator and a microwave. “Most days when I get done with class, I’ll go to the team room, make something to eat and try to take a nap before practice starts,” says Megan Hill, junior outside hitter from Lincoln, Neb. “I’d rather get a nap than drive home, eat and then drive right back.”

Correa and several of the girls on the team have to arrive early to practice to see the trainer. As with any athletic team, it’s seen its share of injuries. At the moment, Correa is overcoming a recent knee surgery, her third since she arrived at the University of Kansas. The first surgery was to repair an ACL tear in her right knee, the second and third were scopes to clean out both of her knees. The training room is bare this morning except for the women’s volleyball team. The girls have 20 minutes in the training room. Lying on the training tables in their practice gear, eyes closed, they heat their cold, sore muscles to get ready.

At exactly 6:15 a.m., the entire team and staff are in the gym. Coach Ray Bechard says hello to everyone and begins his ritual pre-practice speech, which he seems to make up as he goes along. This morning he chooses to comment on how “awake” everyone looks. Everyone just smiles, some chuckle and it seems everyone wishes that practice would just start. “The sooner it starts the sooner it’s over,” someone whispers to another player. Don’t misunderstand. They don’t hate practice. It’s just really early. To keep motivated, every once in a while they have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and truly appreciate the opportunity given to them. But that is easier said than done at 6 a.m.

So what exactly is the bigger picture? For most of the girls on the KU volleyball team, volleyball is their life, and it has always been that way. Like Correa, most have played for close to 10 years and if you ask them, dreams do come true. Fifteen girls from all over the world have been given the opportunity to come to KU and play volleyball. So many girls would give anything to be where these 15 girls are right now. Seven years ago when Coach Bechard arrived at the University, the database of possible recruits was close to 200 girls. Because the program has improved over the years, the recruiting standards have gone up and the coaching staff is more selective when it comes to future players. “Now we only have close to 60 girls in our database,” says Jill Jones-Stucky, assistant volleyball coach. “Of those 60, we are only serious about maybe 15 of them, and on average we bring in three girls a year.” Most of the girls on the team, including Correa, are on full-ride scholarships. In all, the volleyball program has 12 scholarships to offer people. The rest of the girls on the team are walk-ons who don’t recieve any money from the University to play volleyball.

For the girls who aren’t on scholarship, life as a student-athlete is more difficult. “It sucks,” says Jamie Mathewson, sophomore defensive specialist from Kansas City, Mo. “You put all the same effort out every day and you don’t get all the same benefits.” There are always constant reminders. For instance, the first of every month, when both of her roommates go to pick up their checks, she doesn’t get one. Or after practice, when her roommates eat free at The Burge, she can’t go because she is not on scholarship. “I’m OK with it though,” Mathewson says. “I made the choice to do this and it’s making me a better person.”

Practice ends and everyone sluggishly walks back to the locker room to take off their volleyball shoes and knee pads and put on their cross trainers. It’s not time to go home and go back to bed; it’s time to lift some weights. It is 8:00 a.m. “I like weights better after practice because Coach Hudy usually takes it easy on us since we’ve already had a workout,” Mathewson says. After a 45-minute strength workout, they head back to the locker room to get changed. It is still early, but these girls are wide awake. Right away they turn on the music. Some sing, some dance and some just sit there preparing for the day they know they have ahead of them.

This morning Correa has to go to the training room to get ice for her knees. The few lucky ones on the team are injury-free, but it is rare for college athletes to end their career without some battle wounds. Many of the girls don’t have time to go home before their first class so some set up camp in the team room while others go to Wagnon Student-Athlete Center to catch up on some homework.

Correa sits at one of the computers working on her paper. “It probably takes you one day to write a paper,” Correa says. “It is harder for me. It takes me like two weeks because my English is so bad.” When Correa arrived in the United States the extent of her conversation was “hello” and “goodbye.” Along with teammates Josi Lima and Paula Caten, also both from Brazil, Correa spent her first two semesters at the University of Kansas learning English.

The team does well academically, holding steady at a 3.1 GPA. “I feel pretty good about the team’s GPA because we were under a 3.0 the last couple of semesters,” says Scott Ward, academic advisor for the women’s volleyball team. “The team wasn’t proud of that so they rededicated themselves to achieving not only on the court but in the classroom, too.” Of the 11 girls returning next fall, eight are Jayhawk Scholars, meaning that they have a 3.0 grade point average or above. Four of the eight girls are Academic All-Big 12 Second Team (3.0 G.P.A. or above) and four of them are Academic All-Big 12 First Team (3.2 G.P.A. or above).

The line of Brazilian athletes at the University began about six years ago when Coach Bechard joined the volleyball program from Barton County Community College. Danielle Geronymo, the first Brazilian to make a mark on the KU volleyball team followed Bechard. Geronymo’s skills impressed him so much that he began recruiting from Brazil. In 2002, Josi Lima, junior middle blocker and one of Geronymo’s best friends arrived at the University. One year later, Lima’s teammate, Correa, also followed the Brazilian path to the University of Kansas. Then just this past year, Paula Caten, junior outside hitter, arrived as a junior college transfer from Barton. All three girls played together on the same team in Brazil, and when they arrived in the United States they all faced the same difficulties. It was hard for them to leave behind their families and friends. Caten left her 4-year-old daughter behind in hopes of getting an education and providing a better future for her when they are reunited.

After Correa is done in the training room, she heads to class. She has class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays. After class, she goes straight to the training room for about an hour of rehab. After rehab, she hobbles over to the Burge Union for dinner with ice on both of her knees. The Burge prepares meals every Monday through Thursday night for the athletes. Tonight it is meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, tuna casserole and rolls. Each team sits with their respective teammates. Some people eat and leave as fast as they can, while others use this time to relax and socialize. Correa has to hurry up and finish her dinner tonight because at 6 p.m. she has tutoring and she can’t be late again. Stuffing the end of a harder-than-normal roll into her mouth, she grabs her bag and an apple from the fruit bowl and limps off, ice still wrapped around both knees.

Off the court, the girls all remain friends. Hill, Mathewson and Caitlin Mahoney, freshman middle blocker, live together in the same house off campus. Freshmen Kristin Buehler, middle blocker, Emily Brown, right side hitter, and Tessa Jones, right side hitter, live together in the dorms and Lima, Correa and Caten live in the Jayhawk Towers. Emily Brown says living with yur teammates creates a better connection on the court but has a potential downside.“You don’t want too much of a good thing,” Brown says.

Volleyball is fast becoming a popular sport in the United States. Trent Jones, assistant volleyball coach at Washburn University, says there are several things that factor into volleyball’s increasing popularity. Youth club volleyball is now a common choice for both male and female athletes. More than ever, there are opportunities to play in college. With the popularity of club volleyball, kids can start as young as 9 years old. A lot of collegiate volleyball teams, especially the really good ones, now have contracts with T.V. stations introducing more people to the game. The change in the scoring system four years ago is also a big factor. The old scoring system only allowed a team to score when they served and won that rally. Now the team that wins the rally scores the point. The scoring change has made the game faster and more interesting for people to watch. When the sport is doing well, the fans follow.

On a game night during season, there might be 1,000 people who attend the match, compared to the 16,000 that pour into Allen Fieldhouse for a men’s basketball game. During their spring tournament at home in April, only one of the two bleachers was pulled out and there were about 40 people in attendance. Of those 40 people, about half are there to watch the Jayhawks and the others were friends and family of the other teams competing that day. It was a small tournament at Horejsi and the teams competing were all Division II or NAIA except for the University of Kansas. The teams were not at all at the skill level of the teams they would normally face in the Big 12, but it was a chance for them to play competitively. One of their matches was against the University of Nebraska-Omaha, a Division II school. They played two games to 30 points and the Jayhawks won both games easily. “The motivating factor for me in a game like this is pride,” says Dani Wittman, sophomore defensive specialist from Salina. “I don’t want to have to say we lost to a Division II school.”

When Correa has finished tutoring and doing homework that she has for the night, it is finally time to go home. It is nearly 8 p.m. This will be the first time Correa has been home today since she woke up for practice at 5:45 a.m. When she gets home, she drops her stuff by the door and — without turning on the lights — curls up on the couch. She reaches for the T.V. remote control and turns it to BET music videos. Mario’s “How Could You” sings her into a short 20-minute nap. When she wakes up from her nap, she saunters off to the bathroom. “I am going to take a shower,” Correa says. “I am gross from practice this morning.” She hasn’t had time to bathe all day. Afterwards, she goes straight to bed. It is 9:30 p.m.

These are the athletes who know that when they start playing their sport, there is no future beyond their college days and no dollar signs in sight. All the hard work and dedication that they are putting in will ultimately leave them with only memories and self-satisfaction. “This is what I’ve been working towards my whole life,” Mahoney says. “Knowing that I only have four years to play my sport, it makes me play harder every time I get the chance.”

Writer Ashley Michaels was a middle blocker for the KU volleyball team from 2001 to 2004. Contact her at amichaels@kansan.com.