Sept. 18, 2008

A-10 Spotlight: Sammi McCloud, Saint Louis

Sammi McCloud holds a strong belief that practice makes perfect. While she hasn't been perfect, she has certainly been outstanding, leading a Saint Louis volleyball squad that has already notched a pair of upset victories over nationally-ranked opponents.

The junior from Columbia, Ill., stole the spotlight in the team's thrilling four-set win over then third-ranked Stanford in the final game of the Billiken Invitational on Sept. 6 in front of a record-setting crowd of 2,152 at Chaifetz Arena.

"It's that kind of win that makes the 5:00am wakeups, the conditioning and the long practices worth it," says McCloud. "We came into this season prepared to take on anyone and it paid off in the match against Stanford."

That match announced McCloud's arrival on the national scene and garnered the Sports Imports/AVCA Division I National Player of the Week honor, the first A-10 player to earn the award since 1996. But you'd never know it by talking to her.

McCloud personifies the idea of a "team-first" mentality. She works tirelessly at her game despite being naturally gifted. She is competitive, humble and intelligent, and carries the reputation of being her own harshest critic.

"Unfortunately I am," says McCloud at the mention of her reputation. "If there was one part about my game I'd like to change, that would be it. Thankfully, I have teammates and a great coach who are always there to get my head back up."

For fifth-year head coach Anne Kordes, it has been a nice problem for a coach to have.

"She'll dwell on the one mistake she's made and keep it in her for days and you have to do things like remind her that she was National Player of the Week last week," says Kordes, the 2006 Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year. "She's an uncompromising perfectionist when it comes to her performance and she backs it up with her work ethic."

That work ethic has translated into some big numbers for Saint Louis. For the season, McCloud is averaging a team-high 3.36 kills per set, which ranks fourth in the A-10. She also averages 2.61 digs per set while amassing the second-most blocks on the team with 22. She was an All-Tournament team selection at both the Billiken Invitational and the season-opening Best Western Miami (Ohio) Invitational, where she collected Tournament MVP honors. McCloud prefers to stay out of the spotlight, however, and tends to deflect most compliments toward her fellow squad members such as juniors Whitney Behrens and Whitney Roth.


"All that has been nice but what it's really just a reflection of how well we've played as a team," says McCloud of her several recent individual distinctions. "None of it would've been possible if we didn't work together as well as we do."

McCloud's decision to attend Saint Louis was one that weighed heavy on her while in high school, but in the end it was the team's existing chemistry under Kordes that swayed her to don the Billiken blue. It took just a short time to find her place within the fold of the team, which yielded an impressive first season and culminated with McCloud being tabbed the 2006 A-10 Rookie of the Year.

After earning Most Outstanding Player honors of the 2006 A-10 Championship for leading the Billikens to their first-ever league crown and NCAA berth, McCloud's success continued the following year as an All-Conference first-team selection. Off the floor, the modest McCloud spends most of her spare time with her teammates and remains dedicated to her academic career. She was named to the Commissioner's Honor Roll 2007 and is pursuing a degree in communications.

And while SLU is just shy of one month into its 2008 campaign, Kordes has already received numerous summer camp applications from kids who say they want to be coached by Sammi McCloud.

"That hero-status has followed her a bit now after what she did against Stanford," says Kordes. "All the top volleyball clubs and coaches in the city were there to watch her just take over. There have been a lot of emails in the last two weeks about Sammi...a lot."

McCloud seems ready to move forward from the biggest win in the program's history, not to forget it, but to do it again. She'll have her shot this weekend when the Billikens travel to State College, Pa., for a trio of matches, the last of which will be against top-ranked Penn State.

"It was a great win for the program but we put it behind us almost right away," says a retrospective McCloud. "We ran into some tough matches last week, which really put the team's focus back on track. The biggest difference in those big wins and our recent losses was our ability to control the game. There was no scrambling against Illinois or Stanford. We'll have our chance soon to get back to that."