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Volleyball
winners
ON AND OFF THE COURT
GIESSELMANN, WARRIORS ESTABLISH TRADITION OF EXCELLENCE
Keith Kramme’s persistence paid off in a big way for the Midland University volleyball program.
Kramme, who was serving as the Midland athletic director at the time, reached out to Paul Giesselmann a few times to see if he was interested in becoming the Warriors’ head coach. Giesselmann, during that time, was serving as an assistant coach at Creighton University.
“For a span of about a decade they had gone through, for various reasons, three or four coaches,” Giesselmann said. “Keith would contact me because he knew that I lived in Fremont and my wife (Dr. Paige Groppe-Giesselmann) is a pediatrician here in town. But I was really happy at Creighton. I loved it there, and had no desire to leave.”
Kramme tried one last time in the spring of 2010 and was successful.
“My boys (Hunter and Garret) were going into high school and were golfers,” Giesse lmann said. “When you are at the (NCAA) Division I level, you spend a lot of time with everyone else’s kids. You don’t see yours as much as you’d like to. My wife kind of convinced me to go talk to Midland about it.”
Giesselmann, hired in May of 2010, took a program that had been struggling and turned it into a perennial power. Last fall, he
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surpassed 500 career wins in his coaching career. His 288 victories at Midland make him the winningest coach in program history, and he has guided Midland to eight NAIA National Tournament appearances, including three trips to the Final Four.
Giesselmann said when he took the job, he knew that finding talent in Nebraska high schools to feed the program wouldn’t be a problem.
“I knew I didn’t have to travel all over the country to be successful,” he said. “The question I had was did Midland want to have a great volleyball program?”
U.S. Senator Ben Sasse was the Midland president at the time.
“I knew Dr. Sasse and Keith were very committed and wanted a program that could compete on the national level,” Giesselmann said. “It was an opportunity to see my boys compete in golf in high school while building a program here. I just love the challenge of building a program. I had the same situation at the College of St. Mary (where he served as head coach from 1994-2001).”
It didn’t take Giesselmann long to build the Warriors into a national power. In 2013, Midland finished 37-5 with a trip to the national quarterfinals. His 2016 and 2018 teams played in the Final Four while the 2020 team lost in the national championship match to Missouri Baptist in five sets.
Giesselmann built the program using players within a three-hour radius of Fremont.
“Coach Giesselmann really got me interested in the program and showed me the great atmosphere that is here,” Brooke Fredrickson, a senior outside hitter from North Bend, said. “The professors work so well with you, and the facilities here are just awesome. Coach Giesselmann was the one who really made me want to go to Midland because he made me feel welcome. I felt like I was already part of the family, too.”
All-American setter Hope Leimbach, a junior, had NCAA Division I offers coming out of Lincoln Lutheran, but Midland appealed to her in many ways. She wanted to follow in the tradition of talented Midland setters such as Megan Farley and Jessica Peters.
“The program just caught my eye,” she said. “It has such a great culture. The team here is like a family. I knew if I would go to Midland I would get pushed as a player on the court and off the court as well being surrounded by such a great community and people who are always there for me when I need them.”
Fredrickson and Leimbach said they relish competing in front of the crowds at the Wikert Event Center. Midland traditionally posts one of the highest attendance figures in the NAIA.
“In 2019, we had more than 15,000 fans at our home matches, which would have put us in the top 50 of Division I programs for attendance,” Giesselmann said.
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-COACH GIESSELMANN
“We built this culture with mainly Nebraska girls. When you have Nebraska girls as the base of your roster every year, you’re putting a lot of people in the stands because their families, friends, high school teammates, and others come to watch them play.”
Fredrickson and Leimbach fit the mold of talented players with high character that Giesselmann looks for in a recruit.
“There are a lot of teams in sports that might be good for a year here or a year there, but the ones that are good every year have a tremendous culture,” Giesselmann said. “I think the character of the young women in our program is the foundation of our culture.”
Coach Giesselmann said he likes to occasionally remind his players to be careful with whom they socialize.
“I tell them not to hang out with knuckleheads,” he said. “If you hang out with knuckleheads, they are going to hold you down. You need to hang out with people who are going to inspire you to be the best version of yourself. You do that, you’ll have a great life , and that is what we have in our program now.”
Leimbach said when she arrived at Midland, Taylor Petersen and Shelby Bretschneider served as captains. Her sophomore year the captains were Jaisa Russell and Maggie Hiatt. She said she learned from those leaders what it meant to be part of the program. “Those four girls set a really good example for the younger ones on how to do things the right way,” she said. “They all helped build the program and created the success we’ve had. We’re following in their footsteps and trying to do the best we can and hopefully set good examples for the other players that come in each year.”
While Giesselmann is proud of the team’s accomplishments on the court during his tenure, he takes equal or more satisfaction to what the team has achieved off the floor.
“Our players are engaged in the community,” he said.
For about the past eight years, the players have helped Al Vacanti with the Sports For Kids Foundation’s annual memorabilia auction in Omaha. The organization assists physically and emotionally challenged children and their families through the fundraisers.
“Al contacted me about it and I thought it was a great cause,” Giesselmann said. “We went down there and now our players run that auction every year. They just do an amazing job.”
For a home match in 2017 against Concordia, the team also helped organize a Hurricane Harvey relief effort for Houston. Fans were asked to bring items to donate such necessities as diapers and medical supplies. While the Warriors were playing the Bulldogs, members of the Midland men’s basketball team loaded pickups with the supplies. Following the game, Giesselmann led the trek to Columbus where the donated supplies were put on a semi that
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left for Houston the next morning.
“I just talked to the players about what had happened down there and the devastation those people went through,” Giesselmann said. “We talked about being thankful for what you have in life because things can quickly change, but I also wanted them to put a smile on their face knowing they had done a small part to help somebody.”
The Warriors also stepped up to honor volunteers and organizations that provided help during the flooding in the spring of 2019.
“I thought the community really came together during that time, so we decided to use our home opener that August as a celebration to honor these different organizations and people that went above and beyond,” Giesselmann said. “That is what makes the Fremont community so great. It was a great teaching moment for our team.”
The floods that March overlapped with Midland’s spring break, Giesselmann said. Some players were stuck in Fremont, but they knew there were people who were worse off than them.
“I was impressed with the players that instead of complaining that they couldn’t get out of town to start spring break, they were volunteering at churches that became shelters,” Giesselmann said. “That’s the thing I really love about my players and former players is that when there is a need, they step up. I think that is really a testament of this community because the flood was a great example of this community, when needed, stepping up.”
Giesselmann relishes going to the weddings of former players because they serve as mini-reunions. He enjoys sharing the successes of past players such as Darcy Barry, the starting libero on the 2016 Final Four team, graduating from the University of Nebraska Medical Center with a doctorate in pharmacy and Peters, who is in her second year of medical school.
“We’ve had so many amazing young women who are out there making a difference in their families’ lives and their communities,” he said. “To me, that is the ultimate reward.”
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