|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday, January 28, 2008 11:08 PM CST
Boldig accepts Purdue invite to walk on
BY BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
MATTOON -- Changing from golf to volleyball three years ago, Laura Boldig has also decided to switch from mid-major scholarship player to Big Ten walk-on.
The 6-foot-3 Mattoon senior has announced her plans to join Purdue as an invited walk-on.
All Purdue needed to do was make the call to sway Boldig from her earlier plans to take a partial scholarship offer at Southeast Missouri.
“First I went to the camp in the summer at Purdue and I didn’t think anything about attending there,” Boldig said. “I had made up my mind I was going to play at SEMO. I had verbally committed to go there. Then the coach from Purdue called me. I thought I wanted to play at a Big Ten school and thought it was a great opportunity.”
Purdue coach Dave Shondale likes what the Mattoon product can bring.
“We’re very excited about Laura coming,” Shondale said. “We had her at camp this summer. We felt there were a couple of athletes on that team very talented. I talked to the mom about the recruiting process. I just said at that time she’s welcome to come to Purdue. I just said if she would like to come we’d love to have her. We just wouldn’t have anything (in scholarship) for her initially.”
Boldig understands that with her late start in volleyball.
The daughter of Meadowview Golf Course General Manager Jeff Boldig, Laura played for the high school golf team as a freshman before deciding to change to volleyball.
“He was supportive,” she said. “Whenever I was younger I thought basketball was my favorite sport but everything changed.
“I kind of liked the tempo of (volleyball). It’s a quick game with a lot of enthusiasm.”
Boldig’s first year of playing club volleyball was last year with the Twin City club from Champaign and this year she is playing for Bloomington’s Illini Elite.
Her high school senior season was interrupted by an injury last fall but she still was the leader in blocks for a Mattoon team that went 22-11.
“Laura, the big thing about her is she has impacted the program in such a positive way,” Mattoon coach Susan Hutchinson said. “Her freshman year she was on the golf team and didn’t play volleyball. If she wouldn’t have done that, she would have always wondered what if. She entered the program as a sophomore and made a positive impact. I can’t say enough about her dedication to learning the game.”
That dedication helped catch the eye of the Purdue coach.
“He sees in her an athlete,” Hutchinson said. “She’s 6-foot-3 and he recognizes that she is very athletic and can move well for as tall as she is. He said she just hasn’t experience into a high level of volleyball Laura I think realizes she has a lot of improving and learning about the game to do. Her senior year was clouded and plagued by a little bit of injury. It was what she would have liked to have seen for her senior year. She’s playing for the Illini Elite and I went up and watched (Sunday). She has improved even since the high school season. I hope she can go to Purdue and train with them for a couple of years and then do well. I’m wishing the best for her and have high hopes for her. I think it’s going to be a real good experience for her.”
Boldig understands she is not likely to get the immediate playing time she might at a smaller school.
“They are saying I’m going to have to learn a lot of new things and after the first year or two I’d be working into the lineup,” Boldig said. “I know I need to improve and when I do that’s when I’ll be ready to play with them.”
Eastern Illinois and Truman State were others who talked to Boldig in the recruiting process.
Carrying a 4.6 grade point average, she has been accepted into Purdue’s college of liberal arts but has not decided her major yet.
Certainly among the things she plans to learn is more volleyball.
“She hasn’t played as much volleyball as most players we recruit,” Shondale said. “Hopefully by her second and third year she finds ways to contribute. One of the things we liked most about her was the attitude she has. One of the things we look from walk-ons is to establish a positive environment and she does that.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
