Hannah Thompson recalls walking off the volleyball court for the last time after a season-ending loss to Evansville in the second round of the NIVC tournament.
“Honestly, I was a little numb in a way,” Thompson said before trailing off. ”Like I just couldn’t fully comprehend that that was my last time being on the court, so it was hard to process and I still am processing it.”
Her mother, Yvonne Thompson, vividly recalls the moment as well. After conversing with Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Chris Reynolds, Thompson recalls seeing her daughter emerge from behind a curtain.
“Hannah’s not a crier, but she just looked at us and she just started to cry,” Yvonne said. “And she just melted in my arms.”
The last games of a high school or college athlete’s career are often playoff losses. There is nothing more crushing than walking off the playing surface for the final time, but for Hannah Thompson, it marked the finale of a resounding career filled to the brim with success and the end of a journey that many thought would never begin.
Raking in the rewards
There’s no argument against Thompson ending her career as one of the best in the volleyball program’s history. In her four years on the Hilltop, Thompson emerged as the Braves’ all-time leader and 18th in MVC history in digs with 1,902.
The three-time first team All-MVC selection was an unstoppable force on offense as well, racking up 1,377 kills as a focal point of Bradley’s attack. Thompson was the first college volleyball player in the entire country to record over 1,300 kills and 1,900 digs for her career in 18 years.
Thompson’s list of awards is enough to fill an entire trophy case on its own: two-time Academic All-American, MVC Freshman of the Year, two-time MVC All-Tournament team, two-time MVC Player of the Week, five-time MVC Freshman of the Week, three-time midseason All-Tournament team, MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year, and honorable mention AVCA All-Region, in addition to the three first team All-MVC honors.
While Thompson says the AVCA All-Region honorable mention was the most meaningful since Bradley’s region is in the same as conferences such as the Big Ten, the awards were just the side effects of her hard work.
“I think freshman year at the end of the season, I was shocked [about all the awards],” Thompson said. “Even going through the season, getting Freshman of the Week just utterly shocked me. I was surprised I even got kills, not going to lie.”
But before Thompson was racking up hundreds of kills and digs at Bradley, she started out never thinking she’d be accomplishing so much at a school so close to home.
Locally grown
Thompson was raised in Pekin, Illinois, approximately 20 minutes southwest of Peoria. Her mother Yvonne was a prolific volleyball player in her own right, earning a scholarship to Illinois Central College where she played in 1993 and 1994. She then went on to play in Division I at Southern Illinois Edwardsville before becoming the coach of the sophomore volleyball team at Pekin High School in 1998.
“I always knew that I wanted to be a volleyball coach so Hannah was kind of born into it,” Yvonne said. “On one of our [high school volleyball] trips, my doctor said ‘I don’t think you should ride the bus’ because I was very pregnant.”
Hannah was quite literally around the game since her infancy.
“I would bring her in a car seat and stick her in the bleachers with me and kind of protect her but yet I could still coach,” Yvonne said.
“Once I was able to start playing at age 4 or 5, I literally went to every practice with [my mom], even if it was just messing around with the ball,” Hannah added.
The trend continued into Hannah’s elementary school years, where she would walk down the hallway to the attached junior high school and watch her mom coach the junior high team as well.
Around the age of six, Hannah began playing competitively at the Eastside Centre in Peoria with only three other girls on the team.
“She liked being like the big kids,” Yvonne said. “She was the smallest one out there because of her age and the kids were so much older than her, but she always played up [an age level].”
Balancing the duties of being a coach and a parent was no small task for Yvonne Thompson, but both she and her husband, Chris, wanted to see Hannah in the gym as much as possible.
“[It] was not easy, because usually women coaches when they have kids, they kind of give up the coaching part,” Yvonne said. “But because my husband is so supportive and liked seeing her in the gym like me, he let us have that girl-mom time in the gym.”
Moving on up with Mom as the coach
When Hannah began her Pekin High School career, she was no stranger to her parents coaching her. Her father was her freshman year basketball coach and her mother was her volleyball coach. By that age, Yvonne already knew that volleyball was Hannah’s gift.
“I think in junior high, that’s when I kind of started realizing that volleyball was my main sport,” Hannah said. “I still played other sports, but that’s when I knew what I was going to do in college.”
Sure enough, Hannah stopped playing basketball during her sophomore year, much to the sadness of her dad, but she added club volleyball to her schedule. The opportunity allowed Thompson to earn looks from Division I coaches, something her mother knew was realistic since Hannah was in junior high, and gain a new perspective.
“I had to step back and say ‘I can’t coach you,’ so we took her over to Illini Elite in Bloomington,” Yvonne said. ”I wanted her to get a perspective from different coaches. As a mom, I wanted her to deal with her stuff in her way and with her peers rather than having ‘mom-coach’ come to bat.”
Hannah’s leadership skills as a high schooler were eye-opening, according to her mother. When her teammates would get upset, Hannah would remain calm and focused, which is especially hard when her mom was the coach.
“Physically, I think she could handle [being coach’s daughter],” Yvonne said. “It was more of the social, emotional part of it [that was harder]. Her peers would always say stuff like ‘You’re only playing because your mom’s the coach,’ so that was kind of hard on her at first. But it kind of made her fuel the fire a little bit; she really wanted to show them.”
Before coming to Bradley, Thompson’s highs on the court were far more frequent than her lows, making deep postseason runs in her junior and senior years (even playing against future BU teammate Rachel Pranger in the playoffs), racking up numerous honors and playing in a national AAU tournament. But Yvonne recalled one occasion where her daughter felt like she simply wasn’t good enough.
When Hannah was 14, she was invited to a USA youth team tryout in Michigan. After stopping at a Subway on the way home, Yvonne recalls walking in the bathroom to see her daughter crying and thinking she wasn’t capable of playing at a higher level.
“I turned to her and said ‘God has given you a talent. You just have to go out and play,’ and that has stayed with her, the way she plays on the court and how she does in the classroom,” Yvonne said. “That’s what we’re most proud about [is that] she just plays with her whole heart all the time.”
“I didn’t know if I could play college volleyball”
Later in her high school career, Bradley’s coaches did not visit Pekin to watch the younger Thompson specifically, but her club team, Illini Elite, was invited to watch the Braves play. As Hannah’s college decision loomed, she had Division I offers from multiple schools across the country, but Yvonne never thought Hannah would stay home.
“We were totally surprised when Hannah woke up one morning and said ‘Hey, I think I’m going to go to Bradley,’” Yvonne recalled.
In the fall of 2018, Hannah began her Bradley career thinking she might be a libero due to her knack for defense and being undersized for an outside hitter. It took some time in the preseason for her to adjust, which ultimately led to a decision to play outside hitter instead of libero. After a preseason exhibition game in the Caribbean, Thompson had her doubts.
“I didn’t know if I can play college volleyball,” Thompson said. “[It was the] worst volleyball I’ve ever played in my career. I committed to Bradley thinking I was going to be a defensive specialist or a libero, but I never ended up putting the libero jersey on.”
Just like in high school, some may have doubted Thompson’s ability to play. Once the regular season started, however, Thompson earned valuable playing time right away and began racking up numerous MVC Freshman of the Week honors and earning the trust of her head coach Carol Price-Torok.
“People didn’t respect her and didn’t think she could do much, so I think she had a chip on her shoulder and really had something to prove to the program, herself and the people we were playing against,” Price-Torok said. “I think that’s something that showed that year.”
Following a 10-22 season in 2017, Thompson helped the Braves go 24-9 her freshman year and earn a NIVC berth, Bradley volleyball’s first postseason trip in program history. Although Thompson kept putting up numbers upon numbers, Price-Torok noted that her work ethic was most impressive.
“The thing about Hannah that makes her unique is that one, you tell her you can’t do something and she’s going to figure out how to do it,” Price-Torok said. “Two, when you challenge her and saw that everyone was serving to her so she would get tired but for players like Hannah, that’s a challenge accepted.”
As her Braves career progressed, Thompson assumed the role of the team’s on-court leader after the senior core from her freshman year graduated. It wasn’t hard for Thompson’s teammates to follow her due to their strong relationships and unwavering attitude.
“I think there’s no doubt that Hannah was the nucleus of our team and we kind of went as Hannah went or didn’t go as Hannah didn’t go,” Price-Torok said. “People’s eyes were glued on her and what she was thinking and what she was doing.”
Price-Torok, who was recently hired as the head coach at the University of Texas-San Antonio, led the Braves to their winningest four-year stretch in team history from 2018 to 2021. To her, it’s no surprise that it came when Thompson was in a BU uniform.
“I can’t see the last four years without her,” Price-Torok said. “I think she’s a coach’s player that I can have very frank and honest conversations with. We trust her opinions because she’s been here doing it a lot.”
More than just volleyball
Thompson’s list of milestones can be written down on paper. But her impact on Bradley, her teammates, her coaches and local youth volleyball players is worthy of just as many awards. Yvonne said that girls volleyball is growing in Pekin thanks to her daughter.
“The actual proudest moment as a coach is what she has done, not just for Hannah, but what she’s done for the community,” Yvonne said. “She’s kind of energized these local athletes out here, but I’m proud of her for encouraging girls to say ‘Hey, look at Bradley.’ If she’s 5-foot-7 from Pekin and can do it, anyone can.”
While Hannah didn’t achieve her primary goal of winning an MVC title at Bradley, she’s proud of changing the volleyball culture at BU, something she thinks has made great strides since her freshman year on the Hilltop.
Price-Torok struggled to describe Thompson with one word.
“I guess my word would be constant for multiple different reasons,” Price-Torok said after pondering for a moment. “I think just for her tenacity to continue to improve and her constant improvement and work ethic, the way she consistently showed up. She got challenged a lot and she just never really labored.”
Thompson, a health science major, is in her final semester at Bradley and hopes to go into a health-related profession following graduation, something that requires work ethic and time management skills of a Division I athlete. Thompson has been able to deftly balance school and volleyball, earning multiple academic awards throughout her college career.
The senior considered playing professional volleyball, something few Braves have done, but it’s time for Thompson’s next adventure.
“I thought about it, but I’m not going to do it,” Thompson said. “I thought about it sophomore and junior year, but I had an opportunity to go overseas for a week and a half, so I got just a little taste of what it’s like over there, but it’s not for me.”
Thompson admits that it’s still hard to process the fact her volleyball playing career is over.
While sitting in a room in the Business and Engineering Convergence Center studying for an upcoming test, Thompson’s eyes begin to well up with tears thinking about what the sport has meant to her.
“It’s something I’ve been most passionate about my whole life,” Thompson said. “I met a lot of great people through it and learned a lot of great lessons, but it’s been an avenue to be competitive and be myself more and to celebrate with people.”
And celebrate she should.
