Mckenna Wucherer has Olympic dreams but is focused on Minnesota for now
BROOKFIELD, Wis. (BVM) — Mckenna Wucherer has a U.S.A. Olympic flag next to her bed that she looks at every night before falling asleep to remind her of where she wants to take her volleyball career.
“That’s my goal,” Wucherer said. “To make it to the Olympics and even win a gold medal.”
The outside hitter took a massive step toward that goal this fall when she played for Team USA in the FIVB U18 World Championships. That alone was an honor, but Wucherer also thrived on the team, leading Team USA in overall kills with 86 and doing so with a 44.1% hitting percentage. Wucherer also had 13 aces, the third-most in the tournament, and was third on Team USA with 39 digs.
“It’s such an honor to wear those colors, red, white and blue,” Wucherer said. “Putting on that jersey everyday with your last name on the back is something you don’t get to experience often.”
“Just being able to make that team of 12 was such an amazing opportunity.”
Along with the honor of playing for the stars and stripes, the Brookfield Central senior was able to return home with some hardware as Team USA won a bronze by beating Serbia.
“Being able to go out and win a bronze medal with the best in the world against all the European teams that play pro-league all year,” Wucherer said. “We got to train together for two to three weeks and just being able to come out with some hardware is so cool.”
It’s not the end goal for the 6-foot-1 outside hitter, but she is certainly trending in the right direction, something she has been doing since she first picked a volleyball up.
Wucherer did not play a lot of sports when she was a little kid, but then her sisters started to get involved in volleyball. On top of that, Wucherer knew that her mother, who she had lost to breast cancer at a young age, had played the sport in high school and loved it.
“She was always a big role model for me,” Wucherer said. “I knew I wanted to be just like her and my sisters so once both my sisters tried out for club volleyball, I knew I wanted to give it a shot … I knew once I picked up a volleyball it would stay with me forever.”
It has and her mom continues to be a huge part of her and her sisters’ lives. Volleyball has become a family endeavor with all three playing it at an elite level knowing that each time they step out onto the court they are playing the sport that all four of them love.
“Having our mom as our guardian angel,” Wucherer said. “We all wear pink shoes to represent breast cancer especially during October and I know we really take it to heart and we obviously really miss her, but she’s such a big role model in our lives so we really take it into the sport because we know she loved the sport as much as we do.”
When she was 8, Wucherer made the U10s team at Milwaukee Sting. That was the first sign Wucherer was destined to be great at the sport and just four years later, she and her U12 team made it to AAU nationals and took third.
“That’s when recruiting started to get going and I was like, ‘Wow all these coaches, these top coaches see a lot of potential in me,’” Wucherer said. “After that moment I believed in myself from there on.”
Wucherer’s recruiting process started at an early age, but she did have help. Both of her older sisters play volleyball at the collegiate level at Southern Utah and Northern Kentucky. Their advice helped her throughout the process, but one school always stood out to Wucherer, the University of Minnesota.
“Once I stepped onto Minnesota’s campus it felt like home,” Wucherer said.
Her relationship with the players and the coaches was something she couldn’t find at other schools. There was also the connection that Gophers head coach Hugh McCutcheon had with Team USA, having coached both the men’s and women’s national teams in the Olympics and winning medals with both. He is still the only coach in the U.S. to win medals with both teams.
All of it pointed her towards Minnesota and her end goal of the Olympics. In fact, Wucherer is so excited to join the Gophers that she is graduating from Brookfield Central early and will be on campus in January.
“I’m just super excited to get into collegiate volleyball, top level volleyball,” Wucherer said. “Just playing in the Big Ten is such a different atmosphere. It’s a really fast game and I’m super excited for it.”
Wucherer has been preparing for it for a long time. Aside from her club volleyball play, her training with Team USA and her work with her high school, she says she lives at the weight room.
“That’s probably my second home,” Wucherer said.
Day in and day out, Wucherer is pushing herself to get better, to train harder and she has some great motivation to keep pushing even when she doesn’t want to.
“Definitely my mom because I know what she was suffering through with breast cancer,” Wucherer said. “She didn’t want to give up on her fight, she fought everyday and just going after my end goal, competing in the Olympics; you’re not going to get to the Olympics unless you put your heart and soul into the sport.”
Wucherer will continue to pour her heart and soul into her dream of making it to the Olympics. However, she will continue to enjoy each step she takes to get closer to that goal, and the next one is in Minneapolis.
