From fields to arenas, Rogers is cash crop

Vital Stats:

Name: Tess Lynn Rogers

Year: Junior

Position: Outside hitter

Major: History

Picture the pastoral ideal: rolling hills, sagebrush and wheat

fields as far as the eye can see. Now envision the volleyball court

at Moby Arena: loud and intense, the epitome of complexity in

action. These scenes are two worlds apart, but junior outside

hitter Tess Rogers is proof that they can collide.

Rogers grew up in Merino, a small rural town near Sterling with

a population of 246. She attended Division 1-A Merino Junior-Senior

High School and graduated with a class of 18 students (including

three foreign exchange students).

While on the high school volleyball team, she shattered kill

records and blocking records left and right and also competed in

basketball and track.

She has continued to harvest volleyball records in her tenure at

CSU, starting with 20 kills in her first collegiate match. Swinging

her way through her freshman season, she racked up single-season

freshman kill records at CSU and in the Mountain West Conference in

2002.

Last year, Rogers hogtied a single-season record for kills in

the MWC Championship with 61 and was selected as the tournament

MVP. In 2003, she was also a MWC All-Conference Selection. She

surpassed her 100th career block and 800th career kill last year,

and she has already gained 200 digs this season.

It appears that Rogers is at home and running rampant across the

MWC range, despite having foot surgery this summer. And she’s only

a junior.

The transition from wide open spaces to rush hour on College

Avenue is a marked one, but Rogers has acclimated well. When she is

not in class or at practice, Rogers enjoys the rare occurrence of

relaxing in her bed.

As far as pet peeves go, the quickest way to illicit a negative

reaction from Rogers is to be “one of those responsible people” who

bring up forgotten assignments due in class. That’s almost as bad

as mentioning extra conditioning promised by head coach Tom Hilbert

as the team walks out of the gym after practice.

On the entertainment front, Rogers enjoys listening to Newfound

Glory, Maroon 5 and John Mayer. However, she resorts to her country

roots with her favorite song of all time, “I Can Love You Like

That” by John Michael Montgomery, not to be confused with the

version by All 4 One.

When it comes to culinary preferences, Rogers is on a Johnny

Carinos kick lately, but she likes to switch it up all the time.

She can always chow down on chili con queso, her standby food of

choice.

Rogers exhibits a flair for comedy with her top movie choice,

“Tommy Boy.” She favors photography by Ansel Adams over classical

artwork, but she likes some Picasso because of his unique

style.

This flair for distinctive art has translated into an

interesting potential tattoo design she has been planning for

awhile.

“I want to get an outline of a sun with a volleyball in the

middle because I’m convinced that when I am old I am going to

forget the one thing that I was really good at, that I could do

right and that no one could interfere with,” Rogers said.

Speaking of the future, this self-described “aggressive,

competitive and powerful” player plans to spend a few years

continuing her volleyball career at the professional level in

Europe. After this, Rogers wants to reconnect with her past by

teaching and coaching in a small, rural town.

Maybe in the future, as a volleyball coach, Rogers will find

another

needle in some haystack that knocks dust off old record books

and pounds volleyballs down, rattling loose boards in small wooden

gyms.

Maybe she will find someone to chase her records and follow in

her footsteps at Moby Arena. For now, Rogers is busy disturbing

tranquility as the Rams continue stampeding across their MWC

adversaries.