Six years, three schools and two sports later, Kylie DeBerg has accomplished more than the average student-athlete during her career.
DeBerg is currently in her last season of eligibility as a collegiate athlete and will finish out her career in the sand with LSU beach volleyball. This is DeBerg’s second season as a Sandy Tig, but prior to joining the beach team, she had played indoor volleyball for most of her life.
The Hudson, Iowa, native started her career at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2017. After making an appearance in 11 total matches during her freshman campaign, DeBerg hit the transfer portal and committed to the University of Missouri.
During her time at Mizzou, DeBerg left her name scattered all over the record book. DeBerg’s first season as a Mizzou Tiger in 2018 ended with All-SEC and AVCA Honorable Mention All-American awards. She ranked third all-time with 59 aces in a single season and had double-digit kill performances in 28 of the 32 matches she played. As only a sophomore, DeBerg was showing the NCAA early on how powerful of an offensive threat she was and quickly made a name for herself in the volleyball world.
DeBerg’s breakout season at Missouri was just the beginning of her historic career. In her junior season, DeBerg posted 524 kills with an average of 4.72 kills per set—her kill statistics were the most ever recorded by a Missouri Tiger in a single season.
After finishing the 2019 season with at least 20 kills in 10 matches, DeBerg again earned a spot on the All-SEC team and moved up to AVCA Second-Team All-American.
The 2020 indoor season was postponed to the spring of 2021 and shortened due to COVID-19, and despite being on track to graduate from Missouri in December 2020, she felt she needed to say a proper goodbye to her career as a Missouri Tiger before closing the chapter.
In her unusual senior season, DeBerg again earned a spot on the All-SEC team and grabbed another AVCA Second-Team All-American honor after adding 433 kills to her career total and averaging 4.76 kills per set. She had at least 20 kills in 10 matches and contributed 5.55 points per set to lead Mizzou to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the third year in a row.
Following an unprecedented final season with the Missouri Tigers, DeBerg took to the portal to explore options for beach volleyball, then ultimately decided to come to LSU. She was also able to gear up for one last indoor season as an LSU Tiger during the 2021 season.
“I really just wanted to graduate and go, because I want to coach when I’m done playing,” DeBerg said. “But with COVID and everything, I could complete my master’s and have another year. It just really propelled me to want to play beach, and I almost was like, ‘Why not play?’ I got two more years [of eligibility] and if I absolutely hated it, I could just coach or do whatever after that.”
As DeBerg participated in her final season indoors, she was also learning the aspects of the beach game in her free time. Having never played beach volleyball before, it was not an easy adjustment at first for DeBerg.
“I struggled a lot,” DeBerg said. “Last fall I played indoor and then I would come out here like once a week with the [beach] coaches and just set for an hour. Setting is obviously very important because there’s only two of you, so you have to learn to set and I never really set in indoor. So having them want to come out [to the sand] with me and help me just learn how to do that was really cool and made the transition, I think, a little bit easier.”
After ending her indoor career with a spot on the All-SEC team and the 2021 LWSA Newcomer of the Year award, DeBerg traded her usual kneepads and court shoes in for sunglasses and sand.
During her first season as a Sandy Tig, DeBerg went 33-10 and primarily played on Court 2 with either Parker Bracken or Kelli Greene-Agnew. After taking down an impressive number of ranked teams in her first season, she recalls the team’s tournament win against Texas Christian University as one of her favorite memories.
“We didn’t beat them in [the] regular season, but anything can happen in the tournament, and I think that’s one of the things that proves it,” DeBerg said. “We just wanted to beat them so bad.”
This past fall, DeBerg was paired up with Ellie Shank. Shank had spent most of her playing time on Courts 4 and 5 during the 2022 season with either Grace Seits or Sierra Caffo, so neither of the two saw their partnership coming.
“We had no idea who we would be paired with in the fall because we all just played with each other in practice and everything,” DeBerg said. “When Ellie and I found out we would play together, we were like, ‘What?’ because we had never played with each other. So it was just like a surprise. Russell did that, but it’s working out obviously.”
“Part of it, in how well they work together, is they really kind of accentuate their positives and take away some of their vulnerabilities,” head coach Russell Brock said. “It makes them better together than they would be apart. It’s fun to see them take advantage of the partnership.”
After getting some reps in together, DeBerg and Shank headed to Huntsville, Alabama, in the first week of November 2022 to compete in the first-ever AVCA Fall Beach Pairs National Championship. The competition consisted of 64 pairs that were invited from some of the nation’s top programs, and the Tiger duo came out victorious after only dropping one set across eight matches.
One week after claiming their first national title together, DeBerg and Shank went on to win the USA Volleyball Women’s Beach Collegiate Championship in Huntington Beach, California. While the national titles are a highlighted accomplishment, DeBerg sees the wins as much more than a resume boost.
“I think especially for Ellie and I, since we’re both from the Midwest, just showing people that you don’t have to be from California or Florida or somewhere south to be good at this sport [is the reward],” DeBerg said. “You can come from wherever and it just all comes down to your training and everything with how good you can be.”
The off-season success didn’t stop there for DeBerg. Aside from the two national titles with Shank, DeBerg represented the United States at the FIVB Futures Event Tournament for the International Volleyball Federation and earned one of 17 spots on the USAV Beach Collegiate National Team.
“The crazy thing is, Kylie’s very first beach volleyball match of her life was barely a year ago when we first started the season last year,” Brock said. “To see how far she’s come is really inspiring.”
DeBerg’s six-year career has been full of high accolades and record-breaking performances—all that’s missing is a national title ring for LSU. The beach season is coming to a close in just one month and the national championship is set to begin in the first week of May, but she considers other things to be more valuable than winning.
“Obviously winning is fun, but I think with this program, I think we’re here to just do what God wants us to do,” DeBerg said. “Winning it would be really cool, but that’s not the end-all-be-all. I think it comes down to how much we love each other and how hard we work for one another. Winning would be awesome, but that’s not the greatest thing, I don’t think.”
DeBerg’s collegiate career is one that will be remembered everywhere in both indoor and beach settings. With her name cemented in the record books in multiple schools and sports, she hopes to leave behind more than just her athletic performance.
“[I want to be remembered] as someone that works hard but then also loves other people and pushes them to be the best they can be,” DeBerg said.
