<p>by Justin Kischefsky, U.S. Naval Academy Assistant Sports Information Director</p>
<p>Navy senior Rachel Dougherty is in the midst of one of the most successful all-around volleyball careers in school history. The outside hitter recorded the 1,000th kill of her career Oct. 20 in Navy’s match against Army to become just the fifth player in the program’s Division I history to reach that mark. She is tied for fifth place in school history for career blocks with over 262 to her name with one month of the season still remaining. She also has consistently ranked among the NCAA leaders in service ace average this season
and has already set a career best for digs tallied in a single season.</p>
<p>She is both an offensive and defensive threat, no matter where she is positioned on the floor.</p>
<p>It takes hours upon hours of hard work and desire for an athlete to attain the level of success Dougherty has. However, when asked for the direction her true inner drive is pointed, her answer takes her away from the volleyball court.</p>
<p>“I’m more driven to succeed in academics,” said Dougherty. "Athletically, your body can fail you. In the classroom, I have 21 years of learning behind me and you can’t undo learning. In volleyball, you can not play for awhile and you have to work your way back into things. It can happen in the classroom, too, but it is not as difficult. When I am excelling in the classroom I feel it stays with me longer than on the volleyball court.</p>
<p>“I love learning, but I need athletics. I need both to function properly. The one helps me focus on the other.”</p>
<p>A physics major, Dougherty has compiled a 3.89 cumulative grade-point average at Navy and has posted a 4.00 GPA in four of her six completed semesters. In August, she was selected as one of the USNA’s Bowman Scholars for the 2007-08 academic year. Additionally, she has been recognized by the College Sports Information Directors of America for her excellence in both academics and athletics by being named to the ESPN the Magazine’s Academic All-District Team as both a sophomore (second team) and junior (first
team).</p>
<p>“Rachel has done a remarkable balancing act in terms of succeeding both in the classroom and in volleyball,” said Navy head coach Mike Schwob. “She is always focused and ready no matter what she does. When it is time to study, that’s where her mind is. When it is time for volleyball, that’s where her mind is.”</p>
<p>Sports have always played a vital role in Dougherty’s life, but in a way different from other people.</p>
<p>The daughter of a physician in the Air Force, Dougherty was born in Ohio but soon moved with her family to Texas, Wisconsin, Mississippi and back to Texas before going on to live in Germany and England. The family returned to the United States and began living in Maryland in time for her junior year of high school. All of that moving meant Dougherty was often the new kid in school and had to make new friends all over again.</p>
<p>“By nature I am a little bit quieter than others, a little shyer, especially when I was younger,” she recalled. "I would go into a new classroom and not talk to anyone.</p>
<p>“Besides my family (which includes two brothers and one sister), sports was one of the things that helped me the most with moving. Being on a sports team gives you an instant connection to people. My best friends in the places we lived came from the teams I was on.”</p>
<p>That she is a collegiate volleyball player is something no one may have imagined when she was a child.</p>
<p>“I was kicked out of dance class when I was four because I was that bad at it,” said Dougherty. “I was too uncoordinated. I was always tall for my age. When I was younger I had no control over my limbs. I was really bad at sports. I was the one nobody wanted on their team because I couldn’t do anything.”</p>
<p>Despite those early growing pains, she continued to play every sport she could, including swimming, karate, basketball, softball and gymnastics. Volleyball found its way into her life during her family’s second stint in Texas when she and her sister joined a team in San Antonio. From there, she continued playing the sport when the family moved to Germany when she was in the fourth grade.</p>
<p>“I joined the town’s club team,” said Dougherty of where she played in Germany.<br>
“It was an 18 and under team and it was coed. I was 10, so I didn’t get to play much but I did practice.”</p>
<p>When the family moved to England in time for her to start the seventh grade, she learned there was no opportunity for her to continue with the sport until she was in high school. To remedy this, her family promptly started their own volleyball program.</p>
<p>“My dad, sister and I started our own team and league,” said Dougherty. “We gathered all of our friends and made coed squads.”</p>
<p>Dougherty soon reached high school age and played on a more formal team, but when it came time for her to move back to the U.S., she soon found an entirely different game of volleyball waiting for her at Magruder High School in Rockville, Md. </p>
<p>“Volleyball in England and in the U.S. was not the same,” said Dougherty in comparing the two levels. "In England, I hadn’t even heard of some of the simplest plays run over here, like a slide. I was being exposed to this whole new aspect of the game, and it got me excited about volleyball.</p>
<p>“During my junior year, volleyball was my worst sport, but I had the best coach in Scott Zanni. Because of him I became a good volleyball player.”</p>
<p>With her academic abilities, it is no surprise the now 6-foot-1-inch Dougherty had a quick learning curve for volleyball and soon offers from colleges were coming her way. Navy and Air Force were both on the list because they were “intriguing” to her, but neither were found towards the top of the list until she started to narrow down her choices. Then she made her official visit to The Yard.</p>
<p>“When I made my official visit I started to look closer at what Navy was all about,” said Dougherty. “That was the biggest turning point in my decision. When I turned down Air Force they asked me why and I said there wasn’t anything specific. It was a feeling I had. There was no list, no logical reasons, no pros and cons. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut.”</p>
<p>Dougherty spent her freshman year playing behind Ashley Van Hartesvelt, who left Navy ranked second in school history with nearly 1,500 career kills. She would appear in 26 matches during her initial 2004 season and knocked down over 100 kills.</p>
<p>She moved into the starting lineup during her sophomore year and was one of Navy’s most consistent players. Dougherty produced 10 or more kills in 13 matches that season, while ranking among the Patriot League leaders in both hitting percentage and blocks.</p>
<p>Dougherty was asked to play an even larger role in the Navy game plan last year as a junior by playing all six rotations on a regular basis. She responded by appearing in all but one of Navy’s 110 games on the season, averaged a career-best 2.68 kills per game and nearly doubled her combined dig total from her freshman and sophomore years.</p>
<p>Now, as a senior, despite being one of the first Navy players opposing teams point their defenses towards stopping, Dougherty is averaging nearly 4.50 kills per game, is ranked among the top-10 players in the Patriot League with a .284 hitting percentage and is nationally ranked with a 0.571 service aces-per-game average. She has totaled 20 or more kills in five matches this season, including a career-high of 29 coming Oct. 19 against Holy Cross. Additionally, Dougherty has hauled in 10 or more digs three times this year and has tallied three or more blocks in nine matches.</p>
<p>Though it would be rare to see Dougherty talk about any of her accomplishments, that doesn’t stop others from doing so.</p>
<p>“Rachel has developed into one of the main people we look towards when we need a big play,” said Schwob. “When things get tight, she is getting the ball. That wasn’t always the case, but she has really developed confidence in her abilities on the court. It has been enjoyable watching her grow over the past four years.”</p>
<p>“In my book, she is probably the player I admire most in our conference,” said Alma Kovaci, head coach at Army. “She is a great person, is disciplined, polite and has a contagious personality. She seems to always be calm when the team is going through some adversity. She is Navy’s ‘go to’ player and she plays that
role really well.”</p>
<p>Even with the time she has spent developing into a standout volleyball player, Dougherty has done so without forsaking her academics. In fact, the balancing act between studies and sports has been even more challenging for her this season.</p>
<p>Take a recent weekend, for example. After totaling a team-best 16 kills, hitting .344 and tying for the team lead with seven digs in Navy’s match against Bucknell on Friday night, she spent three hours in a classroom Saturday morning taking the Graduate Record Examination. She then was in the starting lineup for Navy’s 4 p.m. match later that day against Colgate. She finished the five-game match with 22 kills (one shy of tying her career high at the time) and a career-best 15 digs.</p>
<p>For her efforts she was selected as that week’s Patriot League Player of the Week.</p>
<p>Dougherty was taking the GRE because graduate school was one of the benefits of her being tabbed as one of the 15 Bowman Scholars this year. In fact, that opportunity was one of the reasons why she originally applied for the program.</p>
<p>“Being a Bowman Scholar had the two things I really wanted; the opportunity to became a nuclear surface warfare officer and the ability to attend graduate school,” explained Dougherty. “The service path for a nuclear SWO seemed to fit me the best. I’m not interested in flying and the Marine Corps wasn’t for me. With going nuclear SWO, I get to go to school for a year and that’s something I like to do. Also, the nuclear part sounded more interesting to me than the regular surface warfare officer commission.”</p>
<p>One of the requirements for Bowman Scholars is to produce an independent project during their senior year. The title of Dougherty’s project: Isotopic Abundance Information from Proton Induced Gamma Ray Emission Measurements. </p>
<p>“For this project I am using an accelerator to shoot protons at materials so they produce gamma rays,” explained Dougherty. "Gamma rays provide information about the nucleus of what you are shooting the protons at. So this tells you the isotopic information about the nucleus.</p>
<p>“The standard proton induced gamma ray emission test is 2.5 mega electron volts. That’s the energy given to the protons in the accelerator. The purpose of my test is to see if you receive different and perhaps better results when using an alternate amount of energy. If measurements can be improved, we can collect better data, have better results and make better theories.”</p>
<p>Dougherty sees having an analytical mind as being a benefit for athletes. </p>
<p>“Sometimes I think about how changing my arm angle may affect the ball, or how top spin makes the ball drop, or if I broad jump into the ball will it give me more forward momentum than if I jump straight into it,” said Dougherty. “Sports are mechanics. Mechanics are physics.”</p>
<p>While she has played many sports from the time she was young, Dougherty naturally gravitated towards team sports more so than individual sports. The team aspect of volleyball is one of the reasons why she likes the sport so much.</p>
<p>“One person can carry a team in basketball and an awesome pitcher can carry a softball team,” said Dougherty. “One person can’t carry a volleyball team. If one person struggles, that’s your weak point and the other team can crush you there. Everyone has to play well to be successful in volleyball and I really love that. It is the ultimate team game.”</p>
<p>In some ways, Dougherty can see the correlation between a sports team and the U.S. Navy. Both have everyone working together with a singular purpose.</p>
<p>“It’s the same idea, but on a bigger scale,” said Dougherty. “That’s why the U.S. Naval Academy has so many athletic teams and why so many people want to play sports and be a part of one of those teams. Sports brings people together to work towards a common goal, just like the Navy does.”</p>