Brooks: Bon Voyage To Taylor 'spider-Woman? Simpson

BOULDER – Volleyball has consumed a large portion of Taylor Simpson's life, so it's no surprise that upon leaving the University of Colorado her goal became continuing to play the sport and making a nice living from it.

She'll achieve that goal next month – but not in a place she ever dreamed of playing. Or living. And never in a lucid moment could she have pictured her name being on the roster of a team nicknamed the . . . Pink Spiders.

Those would be the Incheon Heungkuk Life (Insurance) Pink Spiders of the six-team South Korean V-League. No word on what she can expect as a sideline mascot, but she'll get used to it. Whatever, Simpson, who should have a prominent place in any discussion of CU's best-ever volleyball players, is headed for the Orient to play at the next level.

“It's funny; Korea would have been the last place on my list,” she told me earlier this spring. “I talked with people who played there and didn't hear much good about it. Then when I was out training with USA (volleyball) a girl I was training with had played there for three years, absolutely loved it and talked me into it. And that's where I'm going. I mean, I don't really know much about the logistics, what team is really good and things like that. But I'm going for it.”

Is she excited? Yes. Are there trepidations? Of course. Does she want to spend the bulk of her pro career spiking and blocking just south of Kim Jong-un's really weird neighborhood? Let her get back to you on that.

But distance from her family and the coming cultural change aside, Simpson is ecstatic about the chance to travel, earn very good money, and play the sport she loves.

“I'm very excited,” she said. “I was over there in late May for medical stuff and to meet the team and coaches. It's a great opportunity for me. In Europe it's a little harder (to make an above average salary). The economy is down and they don't pay as well. Korea, China, Japan – they all pay a crazy amount of money. I'm hoping I can stay there a while.”

The 6-3 Simpson appeared on the V-League's radar as one of 20 American players at an invitation-only tryout that preceded the league's spring draft in Anaheim, Calif. Korean coaches and setters showed up and the competition began. League rules allow only one American per team, and Simpson was among the six Yanks to emerge. She knows the other five players, who are from Tennessee, Illinois, Texas, Stanford and Hawaii. “It's a pretty good group,” she said.

On Simpson's first trip to Incheon, she met her teammates and was surprised that all (or most) greeted her and conversed in English. Initially told that none spoke her language, she came accompanied by a translator. She later learned that the Pink Spiders had taken team English lessons in preparation for her arrival.

“It was really cool,” said Simpson, who plans on reciprocating and learning to speak Korean. “I think I'm going to have a lot of free time on my hands during the eight months (August-March) of the season.”

SIMPSON AND TWO OF HER siblings – Cierra and Gabby – last season made what CU coach Liz Kritza believed was NCAA volleyball history by competing on the same team. Kritza couldn't recall three sisters being on one school's roster at the same time. Cierra, now a junior, and Gabby, a sophomore, return this season minus their big sister – and early on they undoubtedly will share Taylor's feeling.

“It's going to be different,” she said. “I'm going to miss playing with them, but from what I've heard it's looking like (CU) is going to be good. They had a good preseason, everybody is shaping up and coming together and the chemistry has gotten a lot better. I think they'll do well, but I'll still miss being on the floor with them.”

But that's far from the only adjustment she must make. She'll be living in a dorm – “That's one thing I'm not too super excited about” – and eating in the dorm cafeteria with players from every other team in the league – “That's going to take some getting used to, but I'm up for whatever.”

Maybe more a source of anxiety than the lodging and meals, though, is the practice regimen and what the league expects of its American imports.

“I've heard the practices are brutal,” Simpson said. “The worst thing I've heard is just getting run down; they practice two times a day. The American is responsible for getting all the kills, all the digs, all the blocks – everything. I heard a horror story of one of the girls who went there getting 54 kills on 90 attempts in a three-set match. So I was really worried about that. But I've been doing a lot of knee strengthening, overall strengthening, just getting everything prepared and ready for that. I hope it's not like that but it might be.”

Whatever it's like, I have no doubt that Simpson, an outside hitter, can handle it. She had an extraordinary 2014 season for the Buffs, setting a single-season record for kills (591; the old mark was 528) that included a career-best 32 in a dramatic five-set loss to Colorado State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament last December.

Honored later as the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame's 2014 “College Female Athlete of The Year,” Simpson called that match “the most emotionally taxing I've ever played in. I replay it in my head all the time. It was such a special game . . . too bad we didn't win.”

At 6-3, Simpson will be the tallest player on the Pink Spiders' roster. A couple of her new teammates, she said, maybe stand 5-11. But what the majority of the players lack in height they make up for with ferocious defense and pinpoint serving ability.

“They play defense like crazy,” she said. “And they service you . . . they're probably the best at those in the entire world. They're all about defense and picking up hits but they're not huge on the block. It's a very, very good league; I don't know if it's the top one but it's very good for sure.”

SIMPSON SAID HER PARENTS, Rick and Serena, were “terrified” in May when she signed her contract with the Pink Spiders. (Maybe it was the name as much the locale?) “They said, 'What did you just sign up for?'”

Eventually, they came around and apparently now are as enthusiastic about the opportunity as their oldest daughter. A family Christmas trip to South Korea is even in the works. “Christmas in Korea, that'll be different,” said Simpson, who previously looked forward to traditional family holidays at their home in Colorado Springs.

Even without knowing exactly what to expect from her first pro season, Simpson can envision playing somewhere from five to 15 years – depending, of course, on where she is and how she holds up physically. She said some South Korean players play into their mid-40s, but that's about a decade longer than most American women. Once she's done playing, coaching will beckon, but hopefully that will come after making Team USA for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

She has spoken with the legendary Karch Karily, the USA women's coach for the 2016 Summer Games, and was told to continue to improve and be patient. “They kind of have their group picked because they won the world championship last year,” Simpson said. “So they're going with that group for the Olympics. But he said my chances are looking good for 2020. He said I'd be back in the gym (for Team USA tryouts) not next summer but the following summer.”

After her senior season at CU, Simpson played in Puerto Rico at the beginning of 2015. Knee problems that surfaced last fall forced her to cut Puerto Rican play short and return for an arthroscopic cleanup on her right knee. When her South Korean season ends in March, she plans to finish off her year in Puerto Rico.

And, of course, when the Buffs launch their 2015 season in late August in the Omni Classic (the field includes Florida State, San Diego State and Oklahoma), Simpson will be tuned in from a world away. She believes the new-edition Buffs will be surprisingly good and surprise many in a still ridiculously strong Pac-12 that also loses several of its top players.  

Simpson's best CU memories start with the opportunity to play with both sisters for one season and being a part of the volleyball program's restoration – “Just bringing the program back to where it should be,” she said. “CU hadn't been doing well for a long time, and to see it rising and hopefully continuing to rise, I think that's the most special part of this whole experience that I've had.”

I asked her what might have been her biggest takeaway from CU volleyball and she answered, “I think more than anything, just to adapt and to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I know coming in, the program wasn't great. I had to adapt to a lot of things – different playing styles and everything. But at the end it was worth it; everybody was so good. It was a lot of fun. I wish I had another (season).”

Kritza does, too, but know this: she's simply grateful to have coached Taylor Simpson. If she wasn't a coach's once-in-a-career player, she came marvelously close.

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU