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62: Preparing for College Volleyball Starts Before You Get There with Dana Burkholder

2026-10-2937:43

What does it take to be ready for college volleyball beyond having the skills to compete? In Part 2 of her conversation with Dana Burkholder, founder of Volleyball Village, Susan explores how athletes can build the resourcefulness, emotional resilience, and capacity to handle the demands of playing at the next level. Dana explains how an athlete’s everyday environment—including friendships, nutrition, sleep, music, and personal habits—can influence how they show up at practice and competition...

61: What College Coaches Want Beyond Volleyball Skills with Dana Burkholder

2026-10-2236:38

What makes an athlete recruitable beyond their physical skills? In Part 1 of this conversation, Susan sits down with Dana Burkholder, founder of Volleyball Village and a former two-time First Team All-American setter at the University of Arizona, to explore the person behind the player. Dana shares why self-worth, confidence, and self-awareness matter in athlete development, and how a performance-focused culture can sometimes leave athletes questioning whether they’re good enough. They discus...

60: What Volleyball Recruits Should Be Doing in the Fall

2026-10-1527:58

Recruiting feels slower in the fall, and if you're watching other athletes commit while your inbox stays quiet, it's easy to wonder if you're falling behind. But a quiet recruiting season doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. In this episode, Susan explains why college coaches have less time for recruiting during their competitive season and why sending more emails isn't always the best way to make progress. Instead of creating activity just to feel productive, you can use the fall to be...

59: Want to Get Recruited? Start With the Right Target List

2026-10-0830:35

What happens when your target list is too high? In this episode, Susan breaks down one of the most important—and often misunderstood—parts of volleyball recruiting: targeting the right schools. She explains what can happen when athletes build a list filled almost entirely with reach schools, from getting ignored by coaches to spending more time, money, and energy trying to get attention. That lack of response can start to affect an athlete’s confidence, mindset, and even how she performs on t...

58: What Does It Really Take to Play D1 Volleyball?

2026-10-0115:48

How much should parents actually be involved in their daughter’s volleyball recruiting process? What does it actually take to become a Division I volleyball player, and is D1 always the right goal? In this special episode, Susan shares a preview of her conversation with her friend Desi McPhail on Your Mental Weight Room. Desi works with athletes on the mindset and mental side of performance, and the two dig into some of the parts of recruiting and college athletics that families don’t always ...

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