Bramschreiber is ready to help Badgers
MADISON – Perhaps Shanel Bramschreiber’s biggest strength over the past couple of months was her ability to compartmentalize.
The graduate transfer for the Wisconsin volleyball team kept working in practice, was one of the team’s biggest cheerleaders during matches and worked on her game behind the scenes. Inside, however, she fumed.
The NCAA-imposed 14-match suspension Bramschreiber received in August for contacting an agent to explore her pro prospects overseas was widely panned as unfair on a common sense and gender-equality level.
But the public support she received didn’t make the punishment any easier to take.
“I feel disrespected right now and for the sport in general,” she said. “I’m not the first and I hope I’m the last but probably won’t be the way things are going.”
Bramschreiber served the final match of that suspension last Saturday, but the residual effects of the punishment have yet to wash away. The penalty came before she established a role with the team and her return comes as UW chases a fourth straight Big Ten championship.
How she will fit into the team is anyone’s guess.
“We have a really solid group right now and I knew even before getting here that it was going to be tough to find my way into the rotation,” she said. “You never know when it’s time to step in, either as a serving sub or if you need a passer. I’m just ready to in wherever, whenever.”
Bramschreiber's search for a new school led to the Badgers
Sixth month ago, Bramscreiber wouldn’t have dreamed of being in this position. She was wrapping up her master’s degree in education after a standout career at Baylor as a libero/defensive specialist and looking into her prospects to play professionally.
When no attractive opportunities presented themselves, the agent she was working with asked her about using her COVID year.
Until that point she hadn’t planned on playing again collegiately. Baylor had used its scholarships on other players leaving Bramscreiber in search of a new school. Wisconsin, which had just lost All-American libero Lauren Barnes to graduation, had a need at the position.
It was seemingly a perfect fit, but first Bramschreiber had to be cleared to play by the NCAA. Even in this new age when college athletes can make significant money off their name, image or likeness, the NCAA still has rules limiting contact student-athletes can have with agents.
The NCAA initially ruled Bramschreiber would be ineligible for the entire season, even though she took no money from the agent. The penalty was cut to half the regular season upon appeal.
“I was especially disappointed because I know with NIL I know they are thinking about taking out all the agent bylaws anyway,” she said. “To know I could sit out 50% of the season and then next year there’s no bylaws at all, this doesn’t matter, it’s a slap in the face.”
Adding salt to the wound was the knowledge that University of Washington football player Jaxson Kirkland was reinstated after missing one game or 8% of his regular season due contact he had with an agent as he prepared for the NFL draft.
There is also the systemic issue women’s volleyball players face. With almost all pro leagues outside the United States, players almost always need the assistance of an agent to determine their market value.
Basketball players, for instance, often enter the draft, can assess their draft value without hiring an agent, and retain their eligibility if they decide to return to school.
The half-season penalty left Bramschreiber in a tough spot.
"Sitting out that much takes a toll on a sport like volleyball when you’re trying to build chemistry and you miss a whole preseason and have a completely new team,” she said. “I don’t have time to get the nerves out or the rust off. No transition period at all."
Bramschreiber stays busy at Wisconsin
Bramschreiber’s experience caused her to start the Let Her Play movement where she is asking supporters to sign a petition pushing or the elimination of NCAA agent bylaws.
She said her fight to prevent situations like hers won’t end now that eligibility has been reinstated. A petition to eliminate those bylaws had almost 3,400 signatures as of Thursday.
Though she couldn’t play, Bramschreiber, who is a studying for a Capstone Certificate in Global Health, has travelled with the team and worked multiple times a day on her game. In addition to practice and team lifts, she is typically in the gym for an hour-90 minutes in the morning in addition to getting in extra work immediately before and after practice.
“I spend all my team in the gym with the team, so I don’t get much social activity,” she said. “None of my classes are on campus. They’re all online, so I’m here most of the day and the team has been that family for me, the trainers, the media people that we have obviously the coaches.”
UW coach Kelly Sheffield has been an outspoken supporter of Bramschreiber’s but even he wasn’t sure earlier this week how she might fit into the team’s plans.
Freshman libero Gulce Guctekin has played well and the team’s use of outside hitters Sarah Franklin and Julia Orzol leave no room for another defensive specialist on the floor.
That said, Bramschreiber could make her debut at Iowa Friday night or see the floor Sunday against Michigan on Sunday, a match that will be shown on ESPN.
“It’s not about her making us better,” Sheffield said. “Even if she doesn’t play a point this is about what is right and wrong rather than how she can help our team play. That’s the way I look at it.”