Submitted photo | University of Wisconsin Athletics
When she was just a little girl, MJ Hammill used to watch the NCAA volleyball tournament on television and dream about what it would be like to be a part of the team that won it all.
Last December, the Center Grove graduate got to live out that dream as her Wisconsin team defeated Big Ten rival Nebraska in five sets to claim its first national championship.
“Something you had seen on TV, and realizing you are a part of a team that accomplished a goal that you’ve been looking forward to your whole entire life — dreaming of that moment,” Hammill said. “It really is just so surreal being a part of something like that.”
The magical moment might have felt a little bit different than Hammill had imagined it; she was on the bench for the entire match. The Badgers already had an All-American setter in Sydney Hilley when Hammill arrived as a highly touted recruit in the fall of 2020, and so the former Trojan star — the Daily Journal’s Player of the Year in 2018 and a four-time All-County player — had to wait her turn.
Like any competitive athlete, Hammill didn’t want to languish on the bench, but she decided to make the most of that time and soak up everything she could while following Hilley’s lead. And not just on the volleyball court; seeing how her older teammates handled their day-to-day business in general helped Hammill adjust to college life.
”Your whole day is planned around that practice, just trying to do so many things,” she said. “It feels like you’re thrown out on your own trying to do school really well and do your sport really well, all while living alone for the first time or living with roommates. Managing stress and trying to do it all; just time management stuff. I think that I learned that pretty well from Syd — just her work ethic. You have a really good work ethic coming in, but it’s just a whole different balance when your whole life kind of shifts more toward your sport.”
Hammill appeared in a total of 15 sets over 10 matches during her first two seasons in Madison, but as her junior season began this fall, she was ready to take on a bigger role — even after having surgery in the spring to remove some broken ankle bone fragments.
Now, she’s a regular in the Badgers’ lineup, although not quite in the way she might have expected. Wisconsin is utilizing a 6-2 setup that pairs Hammill with another setter, senior Izzy Ashburn.
It’s an adjustment for Hammill, who hasn’t played in a 6-2 since she was a 12-year-old — but it’s one that she’s embracing.
“There definitely is a balance to a 6-2,” she said. “Knowing your role, trying to carry on the same tempo — you have two different setters out there who are rotating in, so you’re trying to be as similar as possible so that the hitters are getting the same tempo every time. But it’s also really cool, because you have somebody else who’s helping you lead and being another setter out there.
“Everything takes a lot of practice, but it’s also a really cool thing to run, just because of the amount of talent that we have, especially at our hitter position. One of the perks of having a 6-2 is that we have three hitters in the front row the whole time … which is really hard to block.”
That has certainly paid dividends thus far for the Badgers, who are 7-3 and ranked eighth in this week’s AVCA coaches’ poll after losing at No. 7 Minnesota on Sunday.
Though Wisconsin will again face a meat grinder of a schedule — the Big Ten currently features six of the top 12 teams in the country — Hammill is hopeful that she and her teammates will again be in the mix for a title come season’s end. She’s held that trophy and felt the confetti drop onto her; this time, she wants to be the one assisting on the final point.
“You get a taste of it,” Hammill said, “and it only drives that want even more.”
