How Randolph junior Rylea Alvin 'just knew' where she wanted to play college volleyball

The talented middle blocker traveled to DeKalb, Illinois, on a visit to Northern Illinois University.

During Alvin’s stay, first-year NIU coach Sondra Parys offered Alvin a scholarship to play in 2024.

Alvin was ecstatic when she told her father, “Dad, this is the place I want to go.”

“It just felt right,” Alvin said. “I got a feeling and I love the coaching staff over there. They’re going to push me to be the best volleyball player and person that I want to be. I just knew.”

This decision wasn’t on a whim by the Randolph junior, who had known Parys from her time as an assistant coach at Loyola University Chicago (2018-22). The two had met a couple times during different camps Alvin attended as well as at a tournament in Kansas City.

“She’s just always been around and I always liked how she did things,” Alvin said.

Alvin said she likes the culture at NIU set by Parys.

“It’s the way they do things in their gym,” Alvin said. “They try to really push their girls and that’s what I like. I liked to be worked and she’s going to make me work. She’s going to make me work to my full ability to get playing time, obviously, too.”

Alvin knows a thing or two about determination and worth ethic.

She tore her ACL in her left knee on Sept. 14, 2021, when the Rockets swept Cambria-Friesland 25-10, 25-15, 25-12.

“After she tore her ACL, you saw the great attitude she has coming back from that,” Randolph coach Jeff Kohlbeck said.

It was an unfortunate setback for Alvin because Kohlbeck said the week prior, at a tournament in Whitewater, he could see Alvin was “pretty dominant” in the past few games and “you could just really see the potential was starting to click, and her timing was really good.”

“It was obviously a bad thing to happen to her, but the positive is at least it happened early in her high school career,” Kohlbeck said. “I knew she would work hard to come back. She’s an extremely hard worker in everything she does, so I knew she would work hard to come back.”

Alvin said she was aware of her status as a big-time recruit and it did “upset some things with recruiting.”

“Obviously, things went quiet for a little bit,” Alvin said. “I was worried, personally, but I wasn’t worried that I was not going to go anywhere. I was mentally strong. I was like, ‘I’m going to come out of this and there’s going to be something that’s going to make me want to prove everyone wrong.’

"Coming out of that ACL injury and facing that adversity, it was just overcoming it and now being committed to a Division 1 volleyball program, there’s nothing better than that. It’s just a dream.”

Alvin chose NIU over Division II offers from St. Cloud State, Minnesota State-Mankato, Winona State and Eckerd College.

“I was really determined to find the one (before my senior year),” Alvin said. “I wanted to get all the recruiting out of the way. I essentially just wanted to find a home. I wanted to know where I was going just after volleyball. I knew I wanted to play college volleyball. I wanted it to be done and I wanted to know where I wanted to go. I just wanted to be able to focus on my senior season and not be worried about college, and finding that home.”

Kohlbeck said he talked with Alvin about finding a college home two weeks ago during a club volleyball tournament. Alvin plays for the Milwaukee Sting 17 Gold team based out of Menomonee Falls near Milwaukee.

“In her mind, she wanted to get the burden out,” Kohlbeck said. “She just wanted to get it off her shoulders, so she could just enjoy playing the game. She got exactly what she wanted. Northern Illinois is where she wanted to be. It’s still close to home, so her friends and family could still see her play. She’s playing Division 1. Now she can just relax and just play the game. She could play more for fun. Now is going to be a good time for her. To be honest with you, I really expect her to explode now. I expect her to take that next leap, just because that pressure is gone now.”

All of this played a role, along with the gut feeling Alvin had while on her visit earlier this week.

“When you know you know,” she said. “I just decided to commit right away.”