When Kansas volleyball coach Matt Ulmer first met with his new KU players on a one-on-one basis after accepting the job, he asked them to share their goals and sought to find out what they wanted to get out of the 2025 season.
One of the most popular answers he received was simple — “I want to play.”
No one felt that way quite like senior-to-be Rhian Swanson, a seldom-used outside hitter from McPherson, Kansas, who was entering the final season of her career and still looking to make a splash.
Ulmer got it. He had done his homework and knew plenty about the status and background of the players he was inheriting. But that still didn’t make him want to accept it.
“My response was that’s not good enough,” Ulmer told R1S1 Sports. “I understand that’s where (she was) at in her journey, but if we’re gonna be any good, playing time’s gotta be the least of your concern. It’s gotta be I want to be an All-American, I want to lead the conference in this, I want to lead the conference in that. Because playing time will come with all those other things. So, we need to blow past playing time.”
It took a while for her to embrace the new way of thinking, but, bit by bit, Swanson got there.
That’s what made her recognition as an all-Big 12 second team performer earlier this week even a little sweeter than it already would have been.
“We pushed her to try to be Big 12 Player of the Year and to have some really big goals,” Ulmer said. “I’m not sure she really believed in it, but I think she started to see it.”
Playing time helped. After appearing in just 15 matches as a freshman in 2022 — really just two that had any meaning — Swanson played in just 27 sets her sophomore season and played sparingly as a junior in 2024.
Part of the reason for her sitting was the talent and depth ahead of her. Part of it was the simple fact that, after years of working and wondering and wishing and hoping, her lack of usage had put a dent in her love of the game.
“For sure,” she told R1S1 Sports this season. “I just kind of didn’t want to be here. It was really tough. I would have to go to the locker room and cry sometimes and it was just like, ‘ugh.’ Because you don’t want it to be like that. You want to enjoy going to practice.”
The crazy thing about all of those bad days and emotions was that Swanson got it. She never held it against former KU coach Ray Bechard, who she says she still loves and was like a grandpa to her. And she newver questioned whether the players who played major roles in front of her deserved to be in their spots.
Kansas was good. Ranked. Rolling. And that part, for as much as she loved being a part of it, made the whole thing sting even more.
“Our team was great, which was awesome,” she said. “But that was hard, too. It’s not like I was on the bench and we weren’t winning. So, I had to learn to put my team before myself. That was super-hard for me. Because, I mean, I like to be the star of the show.”
Luckily for Swanson, she had three teammates/roommates — Katie Dalton, Brynn Kirsch and Molly McCarthy — who were experiencing similar feelings. And the four of them, who still live together today, leaned on each other hard during those first couple of seasons.
“They were going through the same things,” Swanson said. “They got told they were the best players at their schools, too. We were just all of each other’s rocks, and it was great to have that support system.”
She also credits former KU teammates Lauren Dooley, Kennedy Farris and a few others for being her “moms” and helping her get through the toughest times, some of which started right away.
Swanson committed to KU as a 15-year-old high school sophomore and arrived on KU’s campus a semester early at age 17. She was excited, of course, but that was a lot of big changes happening pretty fast.
“I had to grow a lot as a person and grow up, too,” she said. “I was 17 when I came to college and it was hard. I was missing home and all that, but I just kept believing I'd get my chance one day and here it is.”
There were no guarantees, of course, and Swanson said she felt as much nervousness as excitement when the news broke last December that Bechard was retiring and Ulmer had been hired to replace him.
But it didn’t take her long to figure out that Ulmer was the kind of coach she could play for. More importantly, she knew that the arrival of Ulmer and a new coaching staff represented a fresh start.
“It was kind of cool because it was kind of like I got to transfer to a new school but yet still be at Kansas and be with all my teammates that I had been playing with,” she said.
Right away, Swanson began to feel a spark.
Ulmer said his initial read on the 6-foot-2 outside hitter who had great length and could touch 10 feet, 7 inches with her jump was a player who was insecure and lacked confidence. He also talked with her a lot about her body language.
But Swanson ate up all of it. The tips, the criticism, the challenges and the new way her coaches looked at what she was doing.
“They’ve helped me fall back in love with the sport,” she said.
Was she ever all the way out?
“Not 100%,” she said. “I obviously will always love volleyball. But coming to practice was hard, and doing good on travel trips, knowing I’m not gonna play, was just really hard.”
Through it all, it was a few wise words from her grandmother, Wanda Williams, who has season tickets in Section 102 at Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena, helped her keep pushing.
“My nana has always just said you’re getting your school paid for, you’re having the best time with your friends, you’re a college athlete, what else could be better,” Swanson recalled. “So, just stick it out.”
There were plenty of reasons she did stick it out. Her teammates. Her love of the KU culture. The town. The school. The proximity to her hometown. The idea that even thinking about going somewhere else always scared her.
That’s not to say she didn’t think about it.
“Probably every year,” she joked. “We all have thought about leaving at some point. I just remember looking at it and thinking I love my teammates, I love the coaches, I love Kansas. And the other side of that is, you don’t know what you’re gonna transfer into. That’s what you have to risk and I don’t think I was ever willing to do that. I’m glad I stayed.”
So, too, is Ulmer, as much for what Swanson provides in potential as what she’s actually done in the 30 matches and 106 sets she’s played in so far this season, with a postseason full of promise getting under way tonight at Horejsi.
Swanson ranked second on the team in kills, with 329, led the team in kills-per-set at 3.1 and hit .258 for the season, which also was among the best efficiency marks on the team.
“Her good days are as good as most people can do,” Ulmer said. “Rhian gives something different than what a lot of other outsides can give but also lacks some things. So, you just have to have the right dynamic to make that work.”
“I’ve been proud of her. We’ve been pushing her. I’ve told her multiple times that if we’re gonna really do something in December, you’re gonna be a huge part of it. We need point scoring and we just don’t have anybody else like her.”
KU (22-10) earned a No. 4 seed in this year's NCAA Tournament and will host first- and second-round matches at Horejsi for the third straight season.
Round 1 gets under way tonight, when KU plays host to High Point at 6:30 p.m.
The winner advances to Round 2 on Friday to face the winner of the matchup between No. 5 seed Miami (Fla.) and Tulsa.
— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com
