LAWRENCE — Reagan Cooper didn’t come into the Pro Volleyball Federation’s draft day with many expectations.

Cooper, who spent this past season in college at Kansas, still hadn’t decided if she was going to go pro. She didn’t know much about the league, which held its inaugural draft in December, or given the teams involved a definitive answer on her future. Even Ray Bechard, the Jayhawks’ head coach, didn’t feel as if there would be much interest from Cooper in it.

“Man, if you’re done playing, great,” Bechard recalled last month, about what he told Cooper after her last match. “But if not, there’s a lot of great volleyball ahead of you yet.”

Enter the Pro Volleyball Federation’s Columbus Fury, an organization Bechard thought had decided it would just draft the best athletes it could and figure it out from there. Enter a member of the organization’s ownership group, Jimmy Burrow, who reached out to Cooper’s dad and then spoke to Cooper herself. Cooper was the league’s 14th overall selection, seventh in the second round, and headed to Columbus eager to live out the plan the Fury have for her.

“I was never going to go overseas, so it being in America was like — it kind of sold it for me originally,” Cooper, a graduate outside/opposite this past season at KU, said last month after the draft. “I was like, ‘Well, let me just go. It’s an amazing opportunity. I’m so lucky to have even been drafted, and that high, by that team — considering I was still unsure.’ So, I just felt like it was all meant to happen.”

That lack of a desire to play professionally overseas came largely from the reality that she hates flying, and the possibility of having to get on a plane for that long. Bechard brought that up as well. But in addition to the fact that a flight to the state of Ohio doesn’t sound as bad, part of what has made it a whirlwind experience is Cooper thought she was done playing volleyball before she even played a set for KU at all.

Cooper started her college career at Washington State and later transferred to Texas Tech, and after her last season with the Red Raiders it was hard for her to think about volleyball to the point she didn’t even want to watch it. Then came the chance to play with her best friend, Mykayla Myers, who elected to transfer from TCU to Kansas. Neither knew what their roles would be with the Jayhawks, Cooper explained, but they trusted the reputation they’d heard the program had.

Together, they helped Kansas go 24-6 (14-4 in Big 12 Conference) in 2023 and reach the second round of the NCAA tournament as a host school. Cooper felt as if the season healed a lot of her wounds, and remains proud and grateful for everyone who helped her reach this point. She loves the sport again, and is leaving the college ranks with the best ending she would have wanted.

“We felt like, midway through the year, that there’s just moments where she was gaining a competitive confidence and I think she grew to love volleyball again like she maybe did initially,” said Bechard, speaking again to how they thought of her as a future pro. “I think there’s a time in her collegiate career where that wasn’t necessarily the case. She got around some teammates that really trusted her and believed in her and some coaches that wanted to develop her.”

The Columbus Fury’s first match is scheduled for Jan. 25 on the road against the Grand Rapids Rise. Cooper said they would start training in early January. It’ll be an adjustment for her, but one she also felt she would adjust to quickly.

The opportunity is one that can mean a lot for the Kansas Jayhawks’ program, considering they’ve had players go on to compete professionally but — as Bechard noted — not like this. The could be more in the years ahead who could join her, like juniors this past season in outside hitter/libero Caroline Bien and setter Camryn Turner. But Cooper also highlighted what the league itself could mean for the sport in this country.

Cooper’s biggest goal growing up was to earn a full scholarship to be a college athlete at the Division I level. She didn’t keep up much with professional volleyball because she didn’t know much about it. The draft, not to mention the league itself, is something she thinks little girls — including herself, if she was in their position — can start to look forward to.

“Another reason why I, like, said yes when I figured out I had been drafted, is it’s such an amazing opportunity for just women’s volleyball in the U.S. in general,” Cooper said. “There are so many good players that were drafted and that I think are going that have accepted. So, I think it’s going to draw on a lot more fans into women’s volleyball. This was the very first draft and I think the whole concept of having an American women’s volleyball draft is going to just, like, blow up in the future.”

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Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas volleyball: Inside Reagan Cooper’s draft day, what’s next