Madi Kingdon finished up her indoor career at Arizona in December with a career match in the NCAA’s second round against a BYU team that went to the National Championship against Penn State. She is headed to Gulf Shores, Alabama next week to compete in the AVCA Sand Pairs Championships before calling her Wildcat career finis.
While there are many players who have left a volleyball footprint in our state, Madi’s is a bit deeper than most. She was the hammer for her high school coach Amber LeTarte. “Madi led her team to three State Championships at Sunnyslope High School, one of which had no seniors on the team.” LeTarte lauds. “She is one of the most determined, competitive, hard-working, intimidating, explosive and impactful players I have ever coached. A solid all around player, she strives to be the best and let's nothing stop her from obtaining that goal.”
Kingdon looked at several schools after Sunnyslope but saw something in Tucson and wanted to be a Wildcat. Four years later, she looks back on a career in which she played more matches and sets than anyone is school history and finished second in both career kills and digs for a storied Wildcat program. She ended her indoor career with a program career best 111 double digit kills matches including all 34 matches in 2014!
Her coach Dave Rubio summed up Kingdon this way: “There is a reason why Madi was one of top three players I have ever coached. She was the hardest worker in practice every day, had a sincere interest in being coached and she never put limits on herself. When your best player in the gym also happens to be your hardest worker; everyone else will fall in line!”
We sat down with Madi a few weeks before her U of A career was coming to a close and we let her talk about her successes, her future and everything in between, in her own words:
HER BEGINNINGS
“I think I get my confidence from my Parents. My Dad is kind of quiet and stern and my Mom is very outgoing and comfortable with herself. They've always taught me to be who I am and don’t apologize for anything: you are who you are.”
“I started playing in 7th grade at Madison Meadows in their league and I was serving underhand. One of my friends was like, you’re tall, you should play for Madison Meadows on their team and I said okay, I’ll try and I was a middle and I played middle my first year of club when I played for Rob Recio. I played 16’s for Storm. Then I played for Terri (Spann) for three years on 18’s but I didn’t play my last year of club. I graduated early and came here. That helped me prepare for my freshman season.”
“I think when I got into high school and I made varsity. I made varsity all four years. I didn’t play much my freshman year; I was a right side at Sunnyslope. We got to the semi finals of state and I was playing and I thought wow, let’s see where the next three years takes us. “
“I think playing beach helped a lot. I also think just going out to open gyms and playing at the draw, like every Friday night during high school. My curfew was 10 p.m. but if I played in the draw I could stay out past 10 o clock. So I was just always playing volleyball and I think that helped out a lot, especially at the draw, playing against guys on a guy's net. I was used to balls being hard driven at me and I wasn't just playing against girls my own age. So I think that helped a lot.”
ON HER BEST COACH
“I’d say my best coach was Terri Spann. She was really good at holding people accountable and she always taught me that there’s always someone watching. So if you were taking reps off or not doing your conditioning the right way, there was always someone watching. I think that really instilled a sense of work ethic in me.”
“I think Dave (Rubio) really helped me with my attacking all around and not just hitting every ball straight down like I wanted to when I first got here. So, throughout my four years I think I've progressed into a hitter with more range instead of just trying to hit the heavy ball all the time.”
ON HER COMPETITIVENESS
“It’s the work you put in. I know that when it comes down to even the smallest things, like running a sprint or doing a little competitive game, I always have to win them. That’s just my competitive spirit. I’m also like the biggest trash talker because I always want to win. I think that comes from Terri and Margie Giordano. When I think about competitive or competitiveness, I always think about Margie. In the gym one day before club practice, we were playing this game and we were playing with Margie, it was her senior year at ASU, and she was talking so much trash and how we were the worst competitors and nobody wanted to win and I was like, I will never let anybody be more competitive than me or outwork me because of that.”
ON HER BEST MEMORIES AT U OF A
“My best memory would probably be my last match against BYU. I had 33 kills in my last match which was a career high so I thought that was pretty cool. In my junior year, we swept USC at home when they were ranked number one in the country. That was a pretty big win for us. Oh, I have one more. My freshman year when UCLA won the National Championship, we beat them both times we played them.”
“I've played beach at U of A for two seasons now. I would say last year as a whole was a highlight because it was the inaugural season and just being a part of that was cool.”
ON COACHING CLUB VOLLEYBALL
“I think that for a lack of a better team, players today are softer, you know the girls coming into the sport. The way that I was coached in club, we had conditioning and people would run until they literally were throwing up and you couldn’t complain about it. I think now the girl’s have a sense of entitlement and their parents are always sticking up for them. It’s just the way that girl’s are now when they come in their freshman year. I think the girls that don’t have that sense of entitlement are the ones that fight through it and get better because they've put in the work to be there and they’re not just handed things.”
“I would tell parents not to be as involved in what their kid is doing, not to talk to the coach and whenever their kid is having a problem, not to run to their aid. Let the girls take care of their own problems with the coach, I think that’s important. Parents are too involved now. Especially coaching club, I have realized that.”
ON HER SACRIFICES
“Most of my good friends are from when we played club together. I have a lot of friends here at U of A but most of them are volleyball players. It’s hard to make friends outside of volleyball when that’s all you’re doing. When I was in the indoor season, taking the minimum 4 classes, 12 units, you take the bare minimum because that’s all you have time for. My schedule would be 2 or 3 classes a day, if you’re hurt you have to go get treatment, then you have practice for 2 to 3 hours a day, then you have lifting and you have to travel on the weekends and you have to do homework and everything on the road or in your hotel. I think it’s good definitely for time management and for getting your priorities straight."
ON HER SACRIFICES
“Most of my good friends are from when we played club together. I have a lot of friends here at U of A but most of them are volleyball players. It’s hard to make friends outside of volleyball when that’s all you’re doing. When I was in the indoor season, taking the minimum 4 classes, 12 units, you take the bare minimum because that’s all you have time for. My schedule would be 2 or 3 classes a day, if you’re hurt you have to go get treatment, then you have practice for 2 to 3 hours a day, then you have lifting and you have to travel on the weekends and you have to do homework and everything on the road or in your hotel. I think it’s good definitely for time management and for getting your priorities straight."
"I think the sacrifices I made for school and making friends outside of volleyball for my volleyball career, and winning, made that all worthwhile. I definitely think it was worth it.”
“I would do it all again. I definitely would have done my indoor career again.”
ON HER WILDCAT LEGACY
“I don’t think it’s hit me yet. I think I can appreciate what I've done but it’s just what I was expected to do. I feel like that was my job, that’s what I came here to do and that’s the kind of numbers that was expected of me to leave a legacy like that. I think every season I gave everything I had to the program so there’s nothing that I regret with my performance and you don’t always have the best luck of the draw with who you’re playing with or the situations you’re in. I think for what I was dealt, I did the best that I could.”
ON HER FUTURE
“I want to go play in Europe. I don’t know where I want to go. I am getting married next May in Arizona to Paul. He’s in the air force. I will come back and I think I will base whether or not I play again on my first experience. If it goes well, I think I’ll give it another shot.”
“I would go to the USA gym but I feel like I’d like to get a year of international experience first. I’d want to see where I’m at there so I could base it off of that.”
“In five years, I don’t even know where I’ll be but I think that’s kind of the beauty of it. I know I’ll be married and I know volleyball will still probably be a part of my life. I could see myself coaching. I’d be a good one! I really like the way I was coached by Terri so I think I would coach that way.”
HER FINAL WORDS
“Anything else I want to say?”
“Meow?”
“I would do it all again. I definitely would have done my indoor career again.”
ON HER WILDCAT LEGACY
“I don’t think it’s hit me yet. I think I can appreciate what I've done but it’s just what I was expected to do. I feel like that was my job, that’s what I came here to do and that’s the kind of numbers that was expected of me to leave a legacy like that. I think every season I gave everything I had to the program so there’s nothing that I regret with my performance and you don’t always have the best luck of the draw with who you’re playing with or the situations you’re in. I think for what I was dealt, I did the best that I could.”
ON HER FUTURE
“I want to go play in Europe. I don’t know where I want to go. I am getting married next May in Arizona to Paul. He’s in the air force. I will come back and I think I will base whether or not I play again on my first experience. If it goes well, I think I’ll give it another shot.”
“I would go to the USA gym but I feel like I’d like to get a year of international experience first. I’d want to see where I’m at there so I could base it off of that.”
“In five years, I don’t even know where I’ll be but I think that’s kind of the beauty of it. I know I’ll be married and I know volleyball will still probably be a part of my life. I could see myself coaching. I’d be a good one! I really like the way I was coached by Terri so I think I would coach that way.”
HER FINAL WORDS
“Anything else I want to say?”
“Meow?”
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