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It’s always exciting to be an Indiana sports fan. From basketball to racing to professional and college football, Indiana is world-renowned for being at the top of our game.
While these sports are the ones we’ve been most known for to date, it’s time we throw one more onto that list—volleyball.
The stats and the history are there to warrant Indiana’s place as a premier volleyball community.
In the 2024-2025 school year, an estimated 12,600 high school students in Indiana were playing volleyball. That’s up 16.7% from 10,800 two years earlier.
In 2025, Indiana ranked sixth among states in the number of players it delivered to the NCAA Division 1 College Volleyball Tournament. And that’s just the players. Let’s talk about the coaches.
Legendary Purdue University volleyball head coach Dave Shondell, a Muncie native who is the winningest head coach in Purdue volleyball history, took his Boilermakers to the Elite Eight last year. He joined legendary men’s basketball coach Gene Keady as the only Purdue coaches with more than 500 victories at the university.
Two other coaches, both from Muncie, led their teams to the Final Four last year. Muncie native Craig Skinner, the winningest coach in Kentucky volleyball history, made it to the championship match with his Wildcats. Wisconsin head coach Kelly Sheffield, also from Muncie, made it to the Final Four with his Badgers.
And it goes beyond the NCAA tournament. The Indiana Wesleyan University Wildcats women’s volleyball team completed a historic “three-peat” by winning three consecutive NAIA National Championships in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
The next frontier for Indiana to hang its hat? Professional women’s volleyball. The Indy Ignite is Indiana’s first professional women’s volleyball team, joining a U.S. professional league that is just 3 years old but already pulling in thousands of fans per game and hundreds of thousands in TV viewership.
In our inaugural season in 2025, the Indy Ignite reached the league championship, beating the No. 1 seed in the semifinals. The team plays to regularly sold-out crowds at the Fishers Event Center and hosted the league’s first ever All-Star Match last year.
Why the excitement? Simply put, volleyball is incredible to watch—athletes with massive verticals, jumping higher than 10 feet, attacks and serves more than 60 miles per hour and points scored every 20 seconds.
The roster itself speaks to the caliber of volleyball in the state. Libero Emma Halter grew up in Indianapolis, played at Roncalli High School and then played for the University of Texas, which made it to the Elite Eight in 2025. Middle blocker Cara Cresse of Fort Wayne played for the University of Louisville, which made it to the Sweet 16, and middle blocker Blake Mohler played four seasons with the Purdue Boilermakers.
The Indiana Sports Corp. has put forth a bold vision—to make Indiana the global epicenter of sports and the women’s sports capital of the world by 2050. Women’s professional volleyball will be a key contributor to making this a reality. Indiana is a volleyball state—now let’s let the world know.•
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Huse is president and general manager of Indy Ignite.
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