Sophomore outside hitter Hannah Willms is heading into largely uncharted territory. 

Willms, who will play her first volleyball season for Iowa State this fall after redshirting her freshman season, is one of the few athletes to play multiple sports.

She recently finished the indoor track season under coach Corey Ihmels, during which she competed in the high jump for the Cyclones. Willms is the first member of the volleyball team in the Christy Johnson-Lynch era to be a member of another athletic team.

“It takes a very special athlete and a special person,” said Johnson-Lynch, the sixth-year coach of the ISU volleyball team. “I’ve never played with a multi-sport athlete in college and I’ve been coaching for 15, 16 years and I’ve never had one. I think that just shows how unique it is to do two sports in college. It’s incredibly tough both physically and mentally.”

It isn’t uncommon for athletes to play multiple sports in high school, but college athletics forces athletes to re-commit their time and effort. 

Willms committed to the volleyball team during her junior year at Dike-New Hartford High School, where she was also a star athlete in track. She also played basketball until her sophomore year, when she decided to narrow her focus.

Being a multi-sport athlete in high school, Willms thought she was prepared to handle the rigors of participating in two sports at the college level.

“I thought I’d be able to do it without any stress,” Willms said. “I’ve done it my whole life, going from sport to sport. It’s a lot different when you get to college. They need you there all the time, and it’s hard to balance out both things.”

Willms admits the biggest adjustment was the time commitment. College coaches aren’t as lenient about missing time for one sport in order to concentrate on another.

While Willms has enjoyed being active in multiple sports, she has always put volleyball first.

Upon accepting the scholarship offer to Iowa State for volleyball, Willms always had track in the back of her mind, but was largely undecided as to whether she would take that on as well.

With Willms redshirting her freshman volleyball season, the idea of joining the track team came up again. Johnson-Lynch had heard of Willms’ track talent and encouraged her to compete in track as well.

“I really wanted to be supportive if she wanted to do it,” Johnson-Lynch said. “She had such a tremendous senior year in high school and I know how good she was, and I wanted to try to make it work and be flexible. I wanted to work with the track coaches to have her do well in two sports.”

By taking a redshirt for volleyball, Willms was allowed to work out for both sports. Being in the top five in the World Junior Championships made it pretty easy for assistant coach Pete Herber to know which sport to focus on.

“High jump was the thing that really got the ball rolling,” Herber said. “Being in the top five in the World Junior Championships kind of opened our eyes to what the possibilities were for her.”

Willms had no trouble with the adjustment to the college level high jump and met the coaches’ expectations right away.

“She’s a heck of a competitor,” Herber said. “She’s going to apply everything she can in both sports, and she’s going to be able to compete very highly because of her work ethic and her competitiveness.”

Willms’s athletic ability has been a blessing for almost her entire life, but most of her abilities didn’t come easily. She offered some words of wisdom to those thinking about playing two sports at the college level.

“Make sure you’re 100 percent committed,” Willms said. “Playing one sport is hard enough, playing two is even more of a time and effort commitment. You can’t go into it halfway.”