The Kansas volleyball team is back in the NCAA Tournament for the fourth consecutive season and 13th time in school history, in as a No. 3 seed and one of the host sites for this week’s first- and second-round matches.
And while it was the solid and steady play of the senior class — Camryn Turner, Caroline Bien, Ayah Elnady, London Davis, Bryn McGehe and Toyosi Onabanjo — that was largely responsible for the Jayhawks getting to this point, reaching their goal of hosting for the second year in a row may not have been possible without the insanely fearless play of sophomore libero Regan Burns.
If you’ve been to a match or watched even a single set of Kansas volleyball this season, you know exactly who I’m talking about.
She’s the smallest one on the court. The one who dives after every ball like her life depends on it and who runs into walls like she doesn’t even see that they’re there.
You might've even wondered a time or two if she was just born without that part of one's brain that signals danger.
“A lot of the times when someone shanks a dig and it goes all the way back to the wall and she’s able to run back and dig it before she smacks into the wall, I think that’s so incredible,” said McGehe, who spends a lot of time in the back row next to Burns. “She just puts her body on the floor wherever she needs to. She’s not scared of anything.”
While Burns will tell you that her efforts are simply a matter of her doing what she can — and what she needs to do — to help her team win, KU coach Ray Bechard believes there’s another reason that Burns so willingly and effortlessly sacrifices her body for the good of the team every time the lights come on.
“She’s from a club and a region where that kind of effort is recognized and promoted, and that’s just the only way they know,” the KU coach said. “So, it was an easy transition for her to put that on display here.”
Burns was raised in Lafayette, Indiana, where Purdue volleyball is a big deal.
“I grew up watching the Purdue girls — little me, like 5 years old — and I just saw them putting their full effort into everything and I wanted to be just like them,” Burns told R1S1 Sports.
It helped that her earliest days in the sport were spent learning from a Purdue assistant, who also happened to be her neighbor.
When the Burns family moved to Lafayette in 2009, they landed next door to John Shondell, brother of Purdue head coach Dave Shondell.
It was in that backyard that some of Burns’ favorite volleyball memories were created. As fearless then as she is today, she used to climb the trees with her friends and get bounced on the trampoline by her older sister and her friends. One time, she was popcorned so hard and fast that her own knee clobbered her face, sending blood spilling everywhere. She stopped jumping because of the nosebleed but didn’t go to the doctor for two days.
Other times, her and the Shondell girls would pass the volleyball back in forth in the back yard for hours, always trying to beat their previous record. They had extra incentive from their parents to do so.
“If we pass this many balls in a row, we got this many scoops of ice cream,” Burns recalled fondly.
It didn’t take long for John to grab Burns and take her to the gym when he took his own daughters to work on their game. Even as young as age 4. It wasn’t just Burns and the Shondell girls, either. That group, known then as “the neighborhood girls,” included five kids who are now playing Division I volleyball.
The reason?
“He just taught me the right way to play volleyball, like, ‘this is just kind of what you do,’” Burns said of John Shondell, who also started the Boiler Juniors program, of which Burns was an original member.
Added Burns’ mother, Rachel: “We always say that John is the reason Raegan is the way she is.”
At Kansas, Burns become a bit of a fan favorite and appreciates the full-circle reality of young volleyball players in the area looking up to her.
“It’s fun to think that I can be for someone now what those Purdue girls were for me,” she said.
That’s if the young girls who look up to Burns are willing to run into walls and sacrifice their bodies for the good of the team. Because you can’t emulate Burns’ play if you’re not doing those types of things on a regular basis.
After a solid freshman season in 2023, when she took control of the position and played a big role in KU’s 26-5 season.
With that experience fresh in her mind and a desire to be even better in the years ahead, she spent the summer working with KU assistant coach Brian Tate on expanding her range.
The driving force behind all of her extra hours of work was simple: “Even if I can get like one more ball per set, that could be huge for my team,” she told herself.
And then she put her expanded game on display again this fall, with diving stabs, relentless hustle and a fearless philosophy leading to another stellar season.
While the Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena crowd oohed and ahhed at every sensational save, Burns never thought much about it.
“I think it’s just kind of the result of me growing up as a libero,” she said. “I never played any other position and I just kept thinking, ‘If I try for this ball, maybe I’ll get it.’ And that just kept growing.”
That’s why she’s not afraid of the floor or any other bodies near her. That’s why she plays every point with all-out intensity, whether KU’s down by 5 or up by 10. And that’s why, in a very real way, she doesn’t even see the walls she runs into before the collisions take place.
“Sometimes I just forget the wall’s there,” she said. “And then I realize it when my body hits it. You’re just watching the ball in the air. You don’t look at the wall or anything else around you.”
She’s never had any serious scares or injuries. Nothing that’s really kept her out of anything, she said. But there have been some memorable collisions, too numerous to count.
“I mean, yeah,” she shrugged. “But I’ve always just popped up.”
That’s not to say everyone in Burns’ circle sees it quite the same way. For instance, her mom, Rachel, who soaks up every second of watching her daughter compete, has often joked with her about ways she can protect herself.
“She always asks if I’m gonna be put in bubble wrap or something,” Burns said with a laugh. “My parents will ask how practice went and I’ll tell them oh this happened or that happened and they’ll be like, ‘Ooohhhh,’ but that’s OK. They’re used to it.”
So, too, is the Kansas program. And there’s no one they’d rather have on their side in the off-colored jersey than the 5-foot-5 Burns.
“Solid. Solid. She holds it down,” Bechard said. “She’s probably thinking she doesn’t have the range that some people have, so she knows she has to be nice and balanced and dynamic and be able to move and cover ground. And she has all that.”
Burns and the third-seeded Jayhawks (24-4) will take on Colgate at 6:30 p.m. Friday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena.
— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com
