Van Compton was surprised at the performance of the team on the other side of the net.
On that late September day in 1994, the seventh-year head volleyball coach watched her Little Rock team drop a five-set match to Oral Roberts, a team the Trojans had always beaten easily.
Something was different about the Oral Roberts team. There were a couple of international players on the roster and the squad had been completely transformed. After the match, Compton went to speak with opposing coach Revis Ward.
"They had two players, one was an outside and one was a middle, and they beat us," Compton said. "After it was over, the coach was a friend of mine, and I said, 'These are not your usual players. Where did you get them?' She told me, 'From Croatia."
That conversation would change Little Rock's program forever. Now in her 34th season as the Trojans' head coach, Compton has brought in players from nearly 20 different countries to comprise her squad. In the process, she's changed the course of countless lives and created a lasting legacy.
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Soon after the loss to Oral Roberts, Compton reached out to Richard Turner, Little Rock's longtime NCAA Compliance Director and head coach of the water polo team, which has since been disbanded.
Turner had a number of international student-athletes on his water polo team. Were any of them from Croatia, Compton asked.
There was one – Vinko Rozic. He would play an instrumental role in helping create the international pipeline for Little Rock volleyball.
"This was back before cell phones, the Internet, anything," Compton said. "You had to make phone calls to get every player. The war had just ended over there. Vinko said, 'I can call my mom. We live close to a gym. They practice volleyball and she can go to that gym.'"
Early in 1995, Danijela Tomic was a student at the University of Zagreb in Croatia. She was playing club volleyball and a road match in Dubrovnik came to define her entire future.
"That was a tough time in my country," Tomic said. "That was the end of the civil war in Croatia. My family was in Bosnia. For me, looking at my future, I didn't see a lot of prospects."
Rozic's mother had been in touch with the club director in Dubrovnik – Roznic's hometown - and let him know that Little Rock was looking for international players.
"After practice in Dubrovnik, the club director came over to my coach and said there was a school in the U.S. looking for volleyball players," Tomic said. "He asked if anyone was interested from our team. I said, 'I am.' That night, Vinko called me from Little Rock and connected me with Coach Compton. He was instrumental in me coming to the U.S."
The recruiting process wasn't easy. Rozic had to translate conversations between Compton and Tomic, who spoke very little English. Because Tomic was a transfer student, she wouldn't have to take the SAT or ACT for admittance. That helped facilitate her move to Little Rock.
Those players on the Oral Roberts volleyball team who had so impressed Compton in 1994 were former teammates of Tomic. She called them and asked about their experiences and whether they thought she should come to Little Rock. They encouraged her to do so.
"In life, everything is about timing," Tomic said. "Knowing three of my teammates had a good experienced in the United States made a difference for me. I wanted something new. My parents were very worried. I said 'I'll learn the language. The volleyball court is the same, the net height is the same, the rules are similar.' I just thought it was a great opportunity for me to try it and see what happened. It was the best decision of my life to come to the U.S."
It wasn't just the opportunity to play collegiate volleyball and earn a degree that helped change the course of Tomic's life. Having Compton as a role model shaped what Tomic saw as possible from a career perspective.
"Coming to Little Rock was transformational," she said. "Coach Compton was the first female coach I've ever had in my career. You have to see that it's possible for you. I had started studying physical education because I wanted to stay in sports, but I don't know if I thought I was going to be in coaching. I was able to see opportunities for female athletes to be coaches because of Coach Compton and Cassie Headrick, who was the assistant coach. I had two female role models who were in the profession."
Tomic ended up spending eight years in Little Rock. After two years as a student-athlete, she served Compton first as a student assistant and then as a full-time assistant coach. That sparked a career for Tomic, who also spent time as an assistant coach at LSU before becoming the head coach at FIU. She is now in her 10th season as the head coach at Bowling Green, where she was named the 2017 and 2020 Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year and has led her team to multiple NCAA Tournament appearances.
"My life would have taken a completely different turn if that didn't happen," Tomic said. "A big piece of that is having Coach Compton as a head coach. After my first year, I could tell we needed help. I started calling my friends from Croatia to see if they wanted to come here and help us win. That kind of started the pipeline."
Compton takes great pride in seeing Tomic's success in coaching that began in Little Rock.
"I look at Danijela and I admire what she has done," Compton said. "She's a very intelligent young lady and she would rise to the top of whatever she was doing. She helped us win our first [Sun Belt Conference] Championship. But I look at what she's done and think, if she would have never left, what would she be doing? I look at her story and I'm really glad."
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Purpose.
That's one common theme that can be found in all of Little Rock's international players from Tomic in 1995 to present day. They all bring a sense of purpose to how they approach their sport and their academics.
"I feel like people that are this far away from home focus a lot more on what they're actually here for," said
Laura Jansen, a current Little Rock senior who hails from The Netherlands. "Because we choose to be this far away, we take it a lot more serious. Why would we go this far away from home to mess up the opportunity?"
Tomic agrees. While a look at the Little Rock volleyball roster on any given year might give the impression that there are countless athletes looking to come to universities in the United States to play sports, Tomic says it really takes a special person to make that decision.
"There are so many who will never make a choice to come that far away from home, study in a second language and be away from their families for four years," Tomic said. "They're courageous. They're a different breed. It takes a lot of courage, independence and maturity. For us, as coaches, that's something we want in student-athletes. I don't see any negatives."
For Compton, while she is quick to note that she has had a number of great American players, she sees that same maturity and sense of purpose in the international players that she has coached over decades.
"They see this more of an opportunity, in my mind, than say an American kid," Compton said. "An American kid could call home and say 'This is not going the way I want, can I come home?' That rarely ever happens with an international kid. They realize this is their ticket to success, not only in volleyball, but in life when they graduate. They see this as an opportunity and they're not entitled. That's kind of the thread that runs through them."
Given its metropolitan location and strength in a number of academic majors, particularly business, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has been an especially appealing institution for international students over the years.
"For internationals, a lot of them want to major in business and that's one of our real strong suits academically," Compton said. "We fit them academically."
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Coming to the United States from a foreign country can be a daunting prospect. At Little Rock, it's one made easier by the fact that there are players from all over the world within the athletics program. Compton has helped open international doors for a variety of sports on the campus.
"Having internationals on the team made it a lot better," said Jansen, a First-Team All-Sun Belt Conference selection in 2020. "They know what you go through, being away from family and how to help you missing home. I didn't want to come to America and just play with Americans. It is a lot easier being away from home with so many people who are all doing the same thing."
Compton too has found that, as time has gone on, international student-athletes have had an easier adjustment to Little Rock because of the number of foreign student-athletes on its roster and the rosters of other programs on campus.
"I think they feel like if the team is already diverse, there's not going to be this initial groundbreaking for them," Compton said. "It's not like the team is going to have to get used to somebody from Sweden or another country. That is kind of already in place. They are already coming to a place that is accepting of being diverse. I think that a lot of international players and coaches contact our program because they do see that diversity. Usually, if you have one player from a country, it's a lot easier to get the second and get the third."
The environment Compton has created at Little Rock is a wonderful mix of diverse thought, personality and culture. That only adds to the educational experience that student-athletes have during their four years on campus.
"It teaches us to learn other cultures and other ways of thinking," she said. "There's so much merit to other cultures. Players come in understanding that this is a diverse team and that we are all very accepting of each other. I think it's been an eye-opener for everyone, and sometimes for me too, because all of the cultures are different. Some of the best friends that are made are with Americans and teammates from other countries. And they become lifelong friends."
Those bonds and friendships have changed the perspective of the student-athletes who come through the Little Rock program, regardless of their country of origin.
"Because we have so many people who are from different cultures and religions, we all teach each other our standard things," said Jansen, who hopes to play professionally in Italy following graduation. "We all think what we do is 'normal' but then we learn a lot of different things about what's normal for everyone else."
Tomic has seen the benefit of playing with teammates from different cultures not only in her own life as a student-athlete, but as a head coach. She believes that it is an important part of preparing young people for the next phases of their lives.
"International student-athletes bring so much beyond their skills," Tomic said. "And it's so beneficial for American and international student-athletes to have teammates from different cultures. It's a global society now. Coach Compton is adding that piece for her student-athletes and she's so good at understanding what they go through. They learn how to work with and learn about and from other cultures. They're being exposed to different ways of thinking, religions and points of view. That's what higher education should be."
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Opportunity is one of the most tangible outcomes of graduation from Little Rock for many of Compton's international players. They're exposed to a number of different career paths that they might not otherwise get to experience.
For Jansen, she's majoring in mass communications and journalism at Little Rock. She's still deciding whether she wants to work in research journalism or sports journalism, but the path to report on sports is not one that would have existed in her home country. The college athletics system is unique to the United States and professional sports are much different in The Netherlands.
"Most of the time, sports journalists at home played professionally or for the national team," Jansen said. "Here, everyone kind of has the same opportunity. If you play sports, it helps you a lot, but there are a lot more opportunities. At home, if I had done journalism, sports journalism would probably not have been an option."
As a student-athlete, Jansen has totally transformed since arriving in the Natural State. She's now one of the top players in the Sun Belt Conference and ranks among the top-35 players nationally in kills, kills per set and points per set.
"Laura came in as this little skinny freshman who we felt like had a lot of potential," Compton said. "We have a great Strength and Conditioning Coach,
John Barron, and he has transformed her strength and agility over her first two years. In her third offseason with him, he has transformed her body. Coach Barron actually has to tell her in the weight room, 'You have done enough.' She came in and was probably touching 9-8. She's touching 10-3 now. That's a great example of what international players do. Laura's story is attributed to her. She has taken advantage so much of everything we've offered here."
Jansen has made countless friends on the Little Rock team, both with Americans and those from other countries. To give an example of the international diversity that exists on the roster, Jansen is teammates with
Laure Jansen, from a different town in The Netherlands. The two had never met.
One of the best friendships she has made is with former setter Taylor Lindberg, a hometown player from nearby Benton, Ark., who is now playing professionally in Switzerland.
"My first year, when I got here, Taylor was playing as a senior," Jansen said. "She taught me a lot of things, but we weren't as close when she was here. Since she has gone overseas, she has learned a lot about my culture and has asked me a lot of questions. For her to go overseas, she sees how we were living and what it was like for me there. That's what made us closer."
It's a common theme on the Little Rock team that has brought the players closer together.
Dinner conversations on team road trips often evolve into discussions of different aspects of players' native cultures. On a recent weekend trip to Conway, S.C., players discussed how similar words and phrases were used in their first languages.
Players will visit the home countries of their teammates looking to learn more about their friends and the cultures that shaped them.
Zanobia Willis, a current sophomore from Red Oak, Texas, has already started planning on making a trip to Bosnia this summer with her teammate
Amna Osmankovic, who hails from Sarajevo.
These are just a few examples of the growth players experience and the bonds they form within the Little Rock program.
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Compton is now in the midst of her 34th season leading the Little Rock program. She's on the cusp of her 550th win with the Trojans entering this weekend. Compton ranks among the NCAA's all-time winningest coaches and is currently No. 23 among active coaches for total wins. They've all come at Little Rock.
She has led her team to five NCAA Tournament appearances, including a second-round showing in 2014. Compton has more than 250 wins in Sun Belt Conference competition and is the conference's all-time winningest coach. The list of accomplishments is lengthy, but it the lives Compton has changed and difference she continue to make that is most meaningful.
"It just makes me happy to see how all of these kids just took the opportunity and ran with it," Compton said. "Not walked. I mean, they ran with it. And that is the same many stories over. I look at that and I'm really glad."
