Inside the sports psychology that propelled MSU Denver volleyball to first national title

The Roadrunners’ path to the Division II national championship began on a mountaintop, offering up their fears to the fire.

In August at the annual retreat for the Metropolitan State University of Denver volleyball team in Grand County, head coach Jenny Glenn and her players gathered around a campfire. It was the first significant moment in the team’s mental evolution, and evidence of the sports psychology that propelled the Roadrunners to program history with their title last weekend.

“We just had to unwrap all our fears, and bring them out into the light,” explained MSU Denver outside hitter Skyler Michael, one of the team’s captains. “So that night at the campfire, it’s almost like we were cleaning out all the garbage in our minds and we each became an empty room.

“Then we had to fill that room up with who we really are — our ‘true identities’ — and the campfire was the beginning of a really vulnerable, beautiful process that laid a foundation for the rest of our season.”

After MSU Denver lost in the regional final each of the four prior years, Glenn knew she needed to do something different to take her program to the next level.

So Glenn dove into her team’s mental game.

She and her assistant, Kaden Knepper, worked with the Freedom Lab on the role of fear and identity in their coaching. And Glenn brought a mental coach, Trisha Kroll, to the team’s mountain retreat. Kroll had worked with the program some last season, but took on a central role in this one, starting in August and then proceeding with weekly meetings with players throughout the fall.

“We’ve been in regional championships, we’ve been really talented,” Glenn said. “But when pressure situations came, I felt like we cared so much that the expectations and how much we wanted it for ourselves just overrode our ability to perform in those moments. We kept coming up against that, and I wanted to figure out a way to get past that.”

At the retreat, Kroll helped the Roadrunners start to face their fears on the court and dig into their ‘true identities’ — the most inherent truth about each coach and player, and the parts of each individual that could not be changed by winning and losing.

Glenn discovered she is a “leader of hearts.” Michael is a “wayfinder.” All-American outside hitter Annika Helf is “a joyful and warrior protector of faith over fear.” Setter GabriElle Brewer, the team’s other captain, is a “commander of belief.” And middle blocker Alyssa Boyte, the Roadrunners’ defensive dominator, is a “deliverer of truth.”

It might sound like shrink-speak, but to MSU Denver, those terms were guiding principals in their pursuit of on-court greatness. With a season-long focus on personal identity, and the corresponding pursuit of team goals in what Glenn describes as “one accord,” the Roadrunners slowly started to unlock a freedom on the court that they previously lacked.

MSU Denver lost two conference matches to Colorado Mesa and Colorado School of Mines in the span of eight days, but after that latter defeat on Oct. 3, the Roadrunners rattled off 23 consecutive wins to close the season.

Along the way to a program-record 32 victories, they won the regular-season RMAC crown, the conference tournament, the regional tournament and then the program’s first national title on Dec. 13 in Sioux Falls, S.D.

“We’re only born with two fears: Fear of loud noises, and the fear of falling,” said Kroll, a former college volleyball player. “All other fears we learn along the way. The two groups of people that have the lowest fear of failure are babies and butt-kickers, and (the Roadrunners) became butt-kickers because they unlearned the fear of failure, the fear of judgment.

“The leaned into their ‘true identities,’ which can’t be earned or lost. They realized it was like their fingerprints on this whole process, and they dissociated themselves from outcome. And once they were able to fully understand all that (midway through the season), they played in complete freedom.”

Because of that, the Roadrunners saw a national title in their destiny, even though no RMAC team had ever accomplished that feat. The team believed the power they unlocked in the 6 inches between their ears was so potent that nothing could stop them from raising the Division II trophy.

So much so that shortly before the RMAC tournament, they started a tradition of pantomiming cannonballs off a platform in the MSU Denver locker room before going out to warm up for their match. One by one, each player would get up on the platform, then do a cannonball jump onto the floor below.

“This belief we were going to win the national title, it was not a half-belief, it was not a dip-your-toes-in-the-water belief,” Michael said. “It was a full cannonball belief, hence (the pregame ritual).”

Along the way, MSU Denver’s play underscored the players’ mental gains.

The Roadrunners blanked Angelo State 3-0 on Dec. 6 in the regional final, finally breaking through to the NCAA Championships for the first time. And once there, the force of their ‘true identities’ never let the pressure phase them.

MSU Denver ended Wingate’s 30-match win streak in a thrilling five-set win in the Elite Eight, and swept top-seeded, previously undefeated Tampa in the Final Four. Then, as an underdog in the championship against powerhouse Concordia-St. Paul — owners of a record nine Division II volleyball titles — MSU Denver rose to the moment in a 3-1 victory.

While Golden Bears head coach Brady Starkey acknowledged afterward that his team “battled nerves throughout the entire match,” the opposite was true for steely MSU Denver.

The Roadrunners made that run despite losing Helf to a right knee injury in the Elite Eight. In her place, Megan Hagar came up clutch, even though she was out of the lineup for much of the season after losing her starting job early on. Hagar, who recorded her first career double-double to lead MSU Denver in the championship, credits the team’s mental training for her success.

“It took putting the team before myself and giving to them the best of my ‘true identity’ (as an unconditional influencer for value) even when I wasn’t on the floor,” Hagar said. “I had some nerves the first few points of the Elite Eight, but after that, I reminded myself of the value of my ‘true identity’ and it unlocked me mentally. I knew I had to lean into that for us to accomplish our mission.”

Considering the Roadrunners only graduate Helf heading into next season, MSU Denver’s mental approach could be the start of a special run for the Roadrunners. But Glenn emphasized this year’s national title was doubly rewarding because while it was the team’s ultimate goal, winning it didn’t define the value of the Roadrunners as parts or a whole.

“We’re talented and we’re good at volleyball and we train hard, but our ability to do what we did superseded all of that because we knew who we were as a team,” Glenn said. “(MSU Denver) Team No. 57’s identity was fearless. Stand firm on love. Get in, and stay in, and seek the fruit of your ‘true identity.’ ”

“That identity, as a team and individually, was formed in our retreat in August. And it’s exactly who we were on December 13th winning the national championship. Nothing that happened changed that.”

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