TicketsDec. 27, 2010
By Shawn Sell
GoBEARCATS.com
Stephanie Niemer has been on quite a journey. After a highly successful prep career just across the Ohio River at Erlanger's St. Henry High, she moved on to become a star on the national volleyball scene at the University of Cincinnati. Now, with her career as perhaps the greatest Bearcat of all behind her, Niemer is ready to move onto another leg of her journey, one that will take her farther away from home then she has ever been.
Niemer's story is well documented. Following high school where she was a standout middle blocker, UC head coach Reed Sunahara immediately moved her to outside hitter when she arrived on campus. The rest is history, or more accurately a virtual rewriting of history. During her stint in a Bearcat uniform, Niemer was a four-time All-BIG EAST performer, including three first team nods. She started her career winning the league's rookie of the year award and capped it with player of the year honors this fall. And or course; there is the crown jewel of all her accolades, this season's AVCA All-American second team award. With the season just a few weeks behind her, Niemer has now had time to reflect on her achievements.
"As a freshman, one of my goals was to be an All-American," she admits. "But now that it's happened its amazing and it really hasn't sunk in yet. With my senior year being as good as it was I think I proved how good I could be and I felt like I stepped up when I needed to."
A team player first, Niemer has always been one to deflect the attention away from her personal accomplishments, instead focusing on the lengthy list of team accomplishments the Bearcats enjoyed, especially this season. In what could do down as the best single season in UC Volleyball history, Niemer is proud of what her team accomplished.
"To beat the No. 5 team in the country (Illinois) and being the BIG EAST Regular Season champions and all of that we accomplished, this was probably the best season I could have asked for," she says. "The last thing we needed was to make it to the Sweet 16 and it would have been perfect, but I am proud of what we have done as a team. Hopefully next year they can take it one step further."
While her list of awards and accolades is long, it makes sense then that Niemer's team would be prominent throughout the UC record book. In career annals, Niemer is second in kills (1,976), kills per set (4.06) and attempts (5,003), holds the mark for aces (195) and shares the top spot in matches played (137). This fall, Niemer broke the single season marks for both kills (624) and attempts (1,523). The player she trails on the career lists and the previous single season record holder? Bearcat great and third team All-American in 2003, Julie DuPont. Since Sunahara coached both of the standouts, who would be better to analyze the on-court attributes of both.
"Best of them started as middles and we moved them outside," he says. "Julie moved to the right side for a year and then played the outside from there. She got a lot more attempts and kills then Niemer, but both are athletic and hit the ball well and both learned to be good passers."
And so which player would Sunahara choose as the greatest Bearcat ever?
"With all due respect to Julie, I think Niemer is," he says. "Julie was a very good player but Niemer just did so much more. Niemer's work ethic is second to none and she was determined to be the best she could be."
For the majority of student-athletes, the last match or game of their collegiate career is the final time they will play their sport competitively again. But Niemer has long proven she is no regular athlete and that is true once again. On December 26th, Niemer embarked on the next stage of her volleyball journey, one that will see her join the professional ranks in Puerto Rico. In a whirlwind sequence of events since the last UC match of the year on December 4th, Niemer has signed a contract to play with Indias de Mayaguez, one of the top teams in the Liga de Voleibol Superior Femenino.
"Reed's friend Tim Kelly is an agent for players who want to play overseas and he stayed in touch with teams that were interested in me," she says. "Once our season was over, he let me know about all the offers that were on the table, but I didn't know before then. It was a crazy couple of weeks."
In preparation for her first professional season, Niemer will spend a month in training with her team before the four-month season kicks off in late January. According to Niemer, Puerto Rico is a common destination for players just out of college starting pro careers. While she is excited for the opportunity, she knows it will be different, especially when she played collegiately just a few miles from home.
"It's a long time and I've never been that far away from home for that extended amount of time so it will be interesting," she admits. "My parents are planning on coming to visit a couple of times which will be nice."
Stephanie Niemer and the teams she played on have accomplished a lot in the past four years. Even though her time as a Bearcat is now complete, Sunahara is hopefully that Niemer's legacy will continue on, especially when it comes to local recruiting.
"Her accomplishments definitely help us in that sense," he says. "If we can keep all the talented local kids at home, we are going to be fine. We can compete in the top-25 every year because there is enough talent here to do that. But a lot of times kids don't want to stay at home. We lost three kids to Big 10 schools for the 2011 class alone. It's tough, but if we can get more kids like Niemer, then I think we can be very good."
When Stephanie Niemer begins her professional career in Puerto Rico in late January, she won't be the only former Bearcat playing professional. Four-time all-conference selection Bonita Wise (1999-2002) is currently playing in the Netherlands, where she has helped her team, VC Weert, to first place in the league standings.