Sports360AZ
By Jeff Metcalfe
Arizona State volleyball fell two wins short of reaching the NCAA Final Four.
Maddie McLaughlin, ASU middle blocker, made it to the semifinals in Tampa, Fla., anyway, sitting with her parents, who now live in Tampa, as part of an indoor college record 19,598 at Amalie Arena.
Most of whom, thumbing through the championships program, had no idea that the subject of a three-page feature was sitting among them.
“We thought it might be a little blurb,” Mary McLaughlin said. Instead, the lavish spread detailed her daughter’s improbable recovery from a debilitating two-plus years in high school due to Lyme disease culminating as an ASU starter this season on an NCAA Sweet 16 team.
“To finally be doing all those things I thought wouldn’t ever be possible,” McLaughlin said. “It’s gratification times a million. I don’t even think there’s a word that encompasses that.”
The word, if forced to narrow it to one, would be will.
The will to walk again, return to public school, resume playing volleyball, find a small college that would take a chance on her as an athlete then a major university to do the same. The will to stick it out at ASU and, going into her final season, to make a major position change. The will to not sell herself short despite circumstances and long odds, something her older brother Charlie preached when Maddie had doubts.
Charlie retro fit a car seat when his sister had a gall bladder attack during her convalescence so she could sleep sitting up. “He almost doesn’t recognize limitations,” his mom said. “He gave her some of the devil-may-care Maddie needed.”
Lyme disease twice
When the McLaughlins lived in Connecticut, all five – Peter, Mary and their three young children – had Lyme disease, an infection transmitted through a tick bite.
“We were not clued in that Lyme was such an issue,” Mary said. “Our kids were playing in tall grass. But when you catch it early, you can eradicate it. By the time Maddie contracted it later, we didn’t have the resources in Buffalo that we had in Connecticut. We kept looking for a diagnosis as though it was going to be the magic bullet. What we discovered was now we have that diagnosis and we still don’t have a clear treatment path.”
McLaughlin made it through one semester as a freshman at East Aurora High School outside Buffalo before being forced by her illness to stay home and work with a tutor. “She was so incapacitated, she couldn’t go back,” Mary said. “She did a home-schooling cooperative for her entire sophomore year.”
As a junior, McLaughlin was improved enough to do half days at East Aurora High then a full course load plus volleyball as a senior. She finished third in her 2018 graduating class but was far behind in her sport, missing out on club volleyball in addition to the majority of her prep career.
“The process of healing gave her the realization that everything was up to her,” Mary said. “That’s one of the biggest lessons she learned in terms of sports. There was no one saying you can play professionally. They weren’t even saying you can play in (major) college or even play Division III. It was like sorry honey, time is precious and it’s too late.”
SUNY Geneseo, ASU takes a chance
Except it wasn’t too late, at least for SUNY Geneseo, an NCAA DIII college in New York willing to roll the dice on the 6-2 McLaughlin.
Hunter Drews, in her second season as Geneseo head coach, provided the platform that McLaughlin needed to prove she could make up for lost time.
“Everybody that wanted to play in college already had offers,” going into fall 2018, McLaughlin said. “Everything was set in stone. That began this feeling of being behind.”
Her e-mail campaign drew lukewarm interest at best other than from Drews.
“Geneseo said we’d love to have you, it made my decision very easy in that there was no decision,” McLaughlin said. “It was a really tough time because I became very aware of myself in relation to everybody else. Where once I had excelled among my peer group, I was suddenly so far behind. I will always be grateful to [Drews] for giving me that opportunity” and supporting her decision to pursue a Division I home after two seasons at Geneseo.
Again, there were many e-mail rejections but also some DI interest from the likes of Penn State, Creighton and ASU, where her father Peter attended. The Sun Devils then were coached by Sanja Tomasevic, whose college coach at Washington was Jim McLaughlin. No relation to Maddie, but a surname that perhaps helped to cut through the recruiting clutter.
“She told me I was super raw not surprisingly,” McLaughlin said. “She could see what I could be and believed in my potential. I trusted she could get me to where I wanted to be. I felt she understood adversity having been an international student-athlete (from Serbia). She had a depth to her that I really resonated with. She understood what it was like to kind of be the odd man out.”
McLaughlin played sparingly in 2020 then redshirted in 2021, leaving her with two years of eligibility including the COVID exception. She again was a little used sub in 2022, Tomasevic’s final season. New coach JJ Van Niel, assessing nine players available during spring 2023, asked 6-2 McLaughlin to switch from outside hitter to middle blocker. She readily agreed, understanding it was her best path to playing time.
“It would seem crazy as a sixth-year graduate student to switch positions a couple of months out of the season,” she said. “That seems totally insane. But it’s because I have a lot of experience of just sort of overcoming crazy odds and working really, really hard to learn quickly. That’s why I felt I could absolutely do this.”
Like at the end of her high school career, McLaughlin blossomed at middle blocker. She became a full-time starter on arguably the best team in ASU history (28-7, NCAA Sweet 16), finishing with 109 kills and 109 blocks.
After suffering an ankle injury against Colorado on Nov. 9, McLaughlin was told she might be able to return for the postseason in December. Instead, she missed one match then returned Nov. 19.
“There was absolutely no way I was going to accept that (injury) timeline,” she said. “Because of my illness, I have very different perceptions on the human body and how healing can take place. I went about it in a very different way. I did not ice it and was actually walking on it that evening. Getting over that mental hurdle is the biggest challenge. You have to convince your brain that it’s safe to play and be athletic. The first game (back) was a little shaky, but after that I felt much more confident.”
Can she join Levinska, Shields as a pro?
Marta Levinska, AVCA All-America first team opposite for ASU, already is playing professionally in Turkey, one of the world’s top leagues. Setter Shannon Shields is a pro now too in Portugal.
McLaughlin believes she can play at the next level but like coming out of high school and now with her late position switch in college, it’s going to require some searching for that opportunity.
“She’s working on it, but all she needs is a shot,” Van Niel said. “Wherever she gets her shot, she’s going to outperform whatever they expect. She’s got a lot of upside in the middle that maybe some others don’t have because they’ve been playing middle for a long time.”
“There’s no one else that works harder than her. If I was a betting person, I would be betting on Maddie, that’s for sure.”
At 24 with a master’s degree in psychology, McLaughlin is qualified for life after volleyball but not content yet in doing so.
“She’s absolutely determined to play pro,” her mother said. “She hasn’t even begun to reach her ceiling as a player.”
Mary believes there is a book to be written about Maddie’s journey “to help others achieve things they feel are impossible.” Certainly, those struggling with Lyme disease can draw strength from McLaughlin’s message.
Recently a young woman with Lyme asked McLaughlin what life after the disease looks like. Will she return to her former self?
“I told her there was a time I couldn’t stand in the shower because it was that exhausting. I couldn’t walk normally. Now I’m playing in the Pac-12 and want to play professionally. She got really emotional. It meant a lot for her to realize you’re not defined by the adversity you face. You can get to choose how you want to define yourself.”
“Just keep going. My mom used to tell me that, just get up every day and do your best then come back and do it again.”
Maddie McLaughlin recently signed to play professional volleyball in Puerto Rico, becoming the third player from Arizona State’s 2023 NCAA Sweet 16 team to turn pro.
