Sharing the entire article written by the one and only Dennis Punzel. A very nice update on Carlini.
badgerextra.com/sports/volleyball/lauren-carlini-wisconsin-volleyball-coach/article_2e8464c8-9d5f-11ef-b760-7b691ee0ed82.html" It has been a period of learning for Lauren Carlini.
Since joining the staff of the University of Wisconsin volleyball team in September, Carlini has immersed herself in the next phase of her career.
In the newly created position of offensive analyst and strategy consultant — coach Kelly Sheffield jokes that he thought of making her assistant to the traveling secretary in honor of George Costanza’s fictional job with the New York Yankees on “Seinfeld” — Carlini has worked on finding her niche on a staff of friends and mentors while also getting to know a roster of players who at least initially were starstruck in her presence.
At the same time she’s been adapting to a new role as a homeowner after spending the past eight years living out of two suitcases. That’s provided an almost daily set of lessons.
“Apparently you have to soften your water and throw these little pebbles in a bin,” Carlini said. “I had no idea what that was. I still have to text my dad because I don’t know what types of bags you have to put in there.”
Carlini also has discovered that there is much more that goes on in the volleyball world than she was aware of as a player.
“As an athlete, you come in and your scouting report is sitting on your table and that’s that," she said. "There’s meetings to be had about health and rotations and numbers and tinkering with things as the season goes on. For me, it was a rude awakening in terms of the hours that you need to do with watching film and meetings and video. And then there’s practice.”
Carlini’s role is officially a non-coaching one, hence the creative title. College volleyball teams are allowed three assistant coaches, and those spots are filled by Brittany Dildine, Gary White and Annemarie Hickey. Carlini is allowed to do minimal coaching, offering occasional tidbits of advice during practice and on at least one occasion she put on the kneepads and filled in for ailing backup setter Carly Anderson to run the “B” team in practice.
But her primary role is to break down film of both the Badgers and their opponents and to mentor the setters, especially freshman Charlie Fuerbringer.
“It’s watching video with people and being able to teach through that,” Carlini said. “It’s being able to work with Charlie and the setters on very specific things in terms of technique but also tactical. I think that’s huge for them and as a team, learning how to watch video correctly and learn from that. That’s been a real learning curve for them in the last couple weeks. I’m glad I get to bring value in that way.
“And of course just be a mentor for them and answer any questions they may have or if they’re curious about things beyond college volleyball, I’m more than happy to answer that.”
Coaching potential evident early onSheffield first began to see the makings of a future coach in the last couple years of her playing career at Wisconsin. He saw her take a growing interest in teaching young players at the summer camps and displayed a knack for communicating things to them. He filed away for later those observations.
“When she was finishing up here, you knew she was going to have a long pro career,” Sheffield said. “I think at the time she was thinking about marketing with a shoe company or a clothing company. There would never have been a discussion about coaching in her early 20s. She just wasn’t in that place. But I thought she had the tools to be a really good coach. You could see her evolve into somebody that was really good at teaching.
“Then after she left, she started doing some clinics around the country and putting some videos together and you could see that she was really good at explaining things, breaking things down in a simple manner. She has a communication style that people lean into. She communicates where her love of the game comes out. She loves the game of volleyball, and it just pours out of her."
Sheffield would call her from time to time just to talk volleyball as her pro career took her to Italy, Russia and Turkey, along with a lengthy run with the U.S. National Team.
“I think as she got older and we started having conversations, you could see there was a little more spark about the possibility of doing something like this,” he said. “I didn’t want to con her into it. I wanted to give her the good, the bad and the ugly of this profession. It’s really cool to be in a profession where you’re involved in young peoples’ lives and competing.
“There would be times I’d just give her a call and pick her brain. We’d just talk about the game. You could always tell that she enjoyed those conversations, which tells you a little bit.”
From legendary player to servant leader
Carlini’s reputation not surprisingly preceded her as she began her new job. As arguably the greatest player in Wisconsin history, the current players were aware of her accomplishments with the Badgers and even more familiar with her exploits with USA Volleyball and winning a silver medal in the Paris Olympics.
Fuerbringer was 7 years old when Carlini made her debut with the Badgers in 2013, leading them to the NCAA championship match. Carlini was one of her role models as she grew into an elite setting prospect in California. Some of that was from what she heard from her father, Matt Fuerbringer, an assistant coach with the U.S. Men’s National Team, and some of it was from her own observations.
“I’ve always watched her YouTube videos since I was little,” Fuerbringer said. “Any piece of advice she might have, I always looked into that. I did that for a lot of setters, but Lauren especially because I knew there was something special about her. Just her work ethic is crazy and you could just see that by the way that she plays. She’s someone that I grew up watching, and she was a big role model for me.”
Which, at least initially, made it somewhat awkward when she found herself working with one of her heroes on a daily basis.
It’s pretty surreal,” Fuerbringer said. “It’s hard to wrap my head around that. She’s here and I don’t want to act like a fan girl, but I guess that’s what we all are. It’s pretty incredible that we get this opportunity. I try to act cool in front of her.”
Carlini grasps how some of the players may have been a little uncomfortable at first.
“They didn’t want to seem dumb or weak by asking questions,” Carlini said. “I welcomed that and I want them to ask questions and be curious. A lot of them are starting to open up and ask, what are you seeing here? Talking not only about stuff on the court but also stuff off the court like what does it look like for pro volleyball here in the States? What does it look like overseas?
“Having those conversations and having them get more comfortable with me, seeing that I’m just a person. I’m just back here doing my job, trying to help them. It’s helped bring that down to ground level and make it more normal to have those conversations.”
“There’s this weird dynamic,” she said. “I’m older than them, but not that much. I’m still in the athlete world, so I understand where they’re coming from in terms of the demands both on and off the court and what it takes to be a student-athlete.
“I do have a pretty good understanding of where they come from in their day to day life and the stressors they have. This isn’t a job for them. It’s just something they really love doing and there’s something so innocent and joyful in that that I love to latch onto every day.”
Sheffield never doubted that Carlini would be able to connect and build a special rapport with the players.
“I think she’s helped players one-on-one because she’s been through all of this,” he said. “She’s played for this coaching staff. And she is where most of our players want to be.
“I think there’s an appreciation because there’s a respect level for what she’s done and how she goes about it. Lauren doesn’t come in here and big-time anybody. There’s zero of that. I think one of the underappreciated aspects of Lauren is how selfless she is and what a servant leader she is.
“She’s always been that way. It’s never about her ego, so I think when she comes in everybody can tell when she talks with them that this person genuinely wants to see them do better, be better.”
Carlini is one of a number of players who has transitioned from the USA gym to coaching positions, particularly around the Big Ten Conference. She’s following a path taken by Megan Hodge Easy at Penn State, Michelle Bartsch-Hackley and Nicole Fawcett at Ohio State and her Olympics teammate Jordan Larson at Nebraska.
The idea of transitioning into a coaching role is one that would come up more often as players saw their playing careers starting to wind down.
“It’s like, what’s the most natural route to go?” Carlini said. “It’s interacting with and being able to teach the next generation. That’s what brings them a lot of joy, brings me a lot of joy, just continuing to grow this game.”
Starting double dutyCarlini’s career will take another twist next week when practices start for Madison’s League One Volleyball (LOVB) team at the new facility in Sun Prairie, with Matt Fuerbringer as her coach. She has been one of the new league’s headliners since committing to it more than a year ago and will be the primary draw for a star-studded team that also will feature Olympics teammate Annie Drews. Matches begin in January after the college season has ended.
“There’s going to be a lot on my plate,” Carlini said. “I’m going to be practicing in the morning with LOVB and then coming here in the afternoons and being with the Badgers. It’s going to be interesting to switch those gears during my drive over. OK, I was in the athlete lens, now my drive over I’m switching that lens to the coaching side of things.
“It’ll be a challenge mentally, but I think it will be a really good challenge. I’ve been bored with so much free time the last eight years playing professionally and now it’s quite the different experience that I’m having. I’m looking forward to it and I’m excited to get back on the court again. I’m getting that itch to play and be out there.”
As for the coaching itch, Carlini is enjoying the experience.
Her contract with Wisconsin is for two seasons, which matches the length of her current commitment to LOVB Madison.Time will tell beyond that. Could she see herself moving into a full-time coaching position or maybe even someday becoming a head coach?
“I think it’s going to take a couple years to honestly get that answer,” she said. “There’s just so much that Kelly does specifically that as a head coach he has to take on. It would be a lot, and I think it would be a developed taste. But I’ll leave everyone on the edge of their seat and say maybe.”
I think it will be a great match. 
