Former Wildcat Madi Kingdon Rishel comes home after a decade of playing pro volleyball overseas

It’s been a long time coming for Madi Kingdon Rishel.

The former standout at Arizona left the country to play professional volleyball overseas in 2015.

Now, in an unexpected twist, she’s back in the United States, playing the sport she loves.

With three professional volleyball league start-ups in the United States — Pro Volleyball Federation, League One Volleyball (LOVB) and Athletes Unlimited (AU) — Kingdon Rishel is finally home after nearly a decade playing all around the world.

Last month, she wrapped up the season for Athletes Unlimited, finishing in third place and now she’s in in preseason training for LOVB Houston, which starts in January.

Athletes Unlimited plays at Arizona Athletic Grounds in Mesa — not far from where the Phoenix native grew up.

“This is my first pro league in the U.S., and it’s in my hometown,” Kingdon Rishel said. “Looking in the stands and seeing my family; that is such a good feeling. I haven’t had that since I was at Arizona, and it’s kind of surreal, too. It doesn’t feel like I’m playing professionally in the U.S. It just feels like I’m at summer camp playing with my friends and my mom is here watching.

“We have so many options now, and it’s a really exciting time of volleyball. I honestly never thought that I would see this in my career. I thought it would come after I had decided to retire. But the fact that I’m still playing, and I’m seeing this happen, and I get to be a part of it is truly so exciting. I’m fired up for the future of volleyball in the U.S.”

AU is a league that is driven by points earned from winning and individual stats. Kingdon Rishel wasn’t on too many winning teams during the five-week season. Instead, the 6-1 outside hitter kept accumulating points for things like having the most kills (232), most kills per set (5.04), attack attempts (638), as well as earning MVP honors.

This should seem familiar to Wildcats fans. The All-American ranks second in both career kills (1,943) and career digs (1,366) in UA history. Kingdon Rishel, a member of Team USA, was also named “best spiker” at the 2016 Pan American Cup and in 2017 earned “best outside spiker” at the FIVB World Grand Prix round of the FIVB World Grand Champions Cup. She’s won multiple gold medals and bronze medals along the way.

Rishel Kingdon said that her success at AU came from being a steady player and that she feels good mentally and physically after strong seasons in Italy and Indonesia.

“I’ve always been depended on, on all my teams, which isn’t something new to me,” Rishel Kingdon said. “Throughout my career, I’ve been a point scorer and really a six rotation outside who’s been depended on to kind of do everything. Obviously, that is helpful here, because the more positive touches you have, and the more points you score, the more points individually that you get on the leaderboard.”

This is the type of play that helps teams regardless of what scoring system is being used and that’s just one of the reasons Kingdon Rishel is an elite player and has had a long career.

Going back to her roots

Retired Arizona volleyball coach Dave Rubio, who was an advisor for AU the last two years, was reunited with Kingdon Rishel this season in Mesa. While he only advised her team in the final week, he watched her play and saw that same “elite, world-class brain” that she had when she played for him at UA. He said that is what separates the best of the best from the rest.

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“The position she plays as an outside hitter, the skills you need to be an efficient outside hitter is compared to someone like Steph Curry,” Rubio said.

“You’ve got to be able to shoot the three, you’ve got to be able to dribble and you’ve got to be able to pass. You’ve got to be able to drive and be able to create your own space, to do a layup. You have to have multiple skills to be able to function at an exceptionally high level. The biggest one (on the volleyball court) is just serve receive. Her ability to serve receive at that level, that’s the biggest thing. And she can score. Madi has a scoring mentality. Her brain is, ‘I’m scoring. I don’t care what it takes, I’m scoring.’ That’s always separated her.”

Kingdon Rishel attended Team USA’s tryouts for the collegiate national team in the spring of what technically was her senior year of high school (she started college that semester, which was unusual at that time, but happens a lot now). She made one of the teams, competing against true college athletes. Rubio said the feedback from the USA coaches was, “Whoever that kid is that you got, all she wanted to do was hit harder and harder and harder.”

“I didn’t know what I had at the time, but Madi went there and was absolutely fearless,” Rubio said. “She doesn’t care who she’s playing against, she’s just trying to score. That’s what I am saying about her brain. She’s just wired differently and that really made her what she’s become.”

Kingdon Rishel said that she always focused on her own game — being aggressive and having fun.

“I always played with intensity … and the coaches at Arizona helped instill that confidence in me just by giving me the space to play and also make mistakes,” Kingdon Rishel said.

This time around, the athlete-coach model was a little different. Kingdon Rishel is a professional and no longer that developing player. While Rubio was respectful in picking his places to advise, the relationship was built a long time ago on trust.

His advice or reminders tended to fall into the realm of “maybe you should pick a better spot as a blocker,” or even adding a few shots back into her repertoire that she used to have to have more weapons to choose from.

“It really was just like falling back into it,” Kingdon Rishel said. “We have fun working together.”

Kingdon Rishel played in Azerbaijan, Korea, China and Turkey before ending up in Italy and Indonesia last season.

Of those places, Korea and Indonesia were among those with the best fans who were really into volleyball and would recognize her on the street, she said.

The most challenging part of playing professionally has been being away from her family. She’s had a long-distance relationship with her husband, Paul, who she married after her first year as a pro. It hasn’t been easy being away from her parents either, Kingdon Rishel said.

It’s only natural that when these leagues started up in the United States, she jumped at the opportunity to come home. She wasn’t the only one ready for this change.

“My parents were so excited,” Kingdon Rishel said. “My mom has come to almost every country I’ve been in, and when I was at Arizona in my senior year, she came to every match, home and away. She is my dedicated No. 1 fan, so, she was ecstatic. Also, my dad, he’s been overseas a couple of times. (For AU), they had a 35-minute drive to come watch me play. It was even closer than Tucson. For them, this was a dream come true.

“For my husband, he’s in Los Angeles, but it was a short flight compared to a 14-hour flight (to an overseas destination). Everybody, collectively, was very, very happy about the shift back to the U.S.”