Streamwood's Post makes most of decision

Every coach's eyes light up the first time they see Katie Post.

Streamwood volleyball coach Kevin Kwon certainly remembers the first time he laid eyes on the budding star.

Kwon was holding a clinic at Canton Middle School in Streamwood when he met an eighth-grade girl who already stood 5-foot-10, strong and lean.

"I just said, 'Wow! Are you coming to Streamwood to play volleyball?' " Kwon said.

Katie remembers the meeting, too.

"Mr. Kwon was basically the first person who told me I had potential," Post said.

Post, however, was a volleyball neophyte at the time.

A die-hard Chicago Bulls fan, she had been playing basketball for years and had developed a deep appreciation for the sport.

She also loved softball. A naturally gifted athlete, Post was a member of the Streamwood Magic traveling softball team for five years leading up to high school.

As a freshman she tried out for Club Fusion's volleyball team but opted instead to play all three sports at Streamwood. She made the varsity volleyball and softball teams and played a bit of varsity basketball after spending most of that season with the sophomores.

But Kwon believed his best player had the potential to develop into a Division-I volleyball player if she concentrated on training year-round.

"I just encouraged her and asked what she thought of it," said Kwon, a current club coach at Sky-High who formerly coached at Fusion. "I am a volleyball guy. I try to encourage and sell the sport. From my experience coaching club and coaching high school, I think it's really easy to get some sort of scholarship in volleyball at some level. I think it is very easy compared to other sports."

Kwon's talk of earning a scholarship hit home for Katie Post. Since she was 6 years old Katie had been telling parents Jim and Andrea that she intended to play some sort of sport on scholarship in college. "It's always been my one goal," Katie said.

Almost as an afterthought, Post tried out for another volleyball club as a sophomore: Sports Performance in Aurora.

At those tryouts Katie made another coach's eyes light up. Those eyes belonged to nationally respected club volleyball coach Rick Butler, who recognized Katie's athletic gifts immediately.

"One of the things we do is we look a lot at physical testing scores because it allows us to predict the upside as to how far they're going to go," Butler said. "Katie was long and tested well. She tested at about 10 feet, so we knew there was physical potential there. We just knew she was going to have to train."

Sports Performance wanted Katie. The question was whether her parents would let her play.

"We spent so much time dragging her around to basketball and softball games, and Andrea and I really enjoyed watching her play," said Jim Post. "So, when she made the choice to go ahead and drop basketball and softball to concentrate solely on volleyball, yes, it devastated me."

The price of elite club volleyball training was also an issue.

"We went to tryouts and we weren't sure if we would do it because of the cost," recalls Andrea Post. "We went to a meeting, and Rick's wife Cheryl was there. She goes, 'You guys don't have a choice. Rick wants her here, and I have to do whatever we can to get her here.'

"Rick ended up calling and talking to my husband. He didn't realize what Katie's potential was either."

It was a phone call that altered the course of Katie Post's life.

"Katie was kind of worried that her dad wasn't going to let her play, so her mom and her kind of tag-teamed with me on her father," Butler said.

That call made an impression on Jim Post.

"From what I understand Rick doesn't call a whole lot of people," he said.

To her own amazement, Post made Sports Performance's top team for 16 year olds as a sophomore. She played alongside Kelly Murphy of Joliet Catholic, who is currently rated the top senior volleyball player in the United States.

The rest of the roster read like a Who's Who of volleyball elite in Illinois, including Colleen Ward of Naperville North and Erica Behm of Downers Grove North.

Post felt somewhat overwhelmed because some of her teammates had been training in the sport for eight or nine years already. She hadn't started playing until middle school. But together that group went on to win the open national championship at the Junior Olympics in Atlanta, losing just one game in nine matches.

In summary, Post advanced from a middle school clinic to the top level of the sport in under three years. "To go from where I was to the end of that year was so different and pretty awesome," Katie said.

She returned in the fall to her Streamwood team a completely different player, one brimming with confidence and new weapons.

After leading Streamwood to a rare 20-win season, Post trained last spring with Sports Performances's second team for 17 year olds. During that season she visited, then committed verbally to play for Ohio University, a program currently ranked 15th in the nation with a 21-4 record. Her dream of a full college scholarship had come true.

She returned for her senior season at Streamwood to lead what had been a struggling volleyball program to back-to-back 20-win seasons.

Post finished the 2007 campaign with 320 kills, 52 aces 180 digs and 43 solo blocks.

"I've coached a lot of Division-I athletes at Fusion and Sky-Hi," Kwon said, "but it's more satisfying having Katie come through the (high school) program because I was able to help her. I feel like that's my girl and it's more satisfying to see Katie succeed because she's my own. I'm ecstatic."

That admiration is mutual.

"Thank God Mr. Kwon saw potential in me or else I wouldn't be where I am now," Katie Post said.