Molly McCage Kevorken took the long way home.
The Spring, Texas, native played collegiate volleyball for UT Austin. She was a three-time All-American, leading the Longhorns to four Final Four appearances and a national championship in 2012.
After graduating in 2016, she became a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team, winning gold medals at the Pan American Cup in Peru in 2017 and the Dominican Republic in 2018. That was in addition to playing professionally in Germany’s Volleyball Bundesliga, where she helped her team, MTV Allianz Stuttgart, win a league championship. She was named the league’s best blocker two years in a row.
She was 25 years old and on top of the world, getting paid to play a sport that she’d spent countless hours practicing ever since the seventh grade. But something was missing for her. She was homesick and far away from loved ones for months at a time. So McCage Kevorken made the difficult decision to step away from playing volleyball in the summer of 2020.
“I retired so young,” she says. “And it was never because I didn’t love volleyball. I absolutely loved the sport. But I just couldn’t figure out how to make it work with my family and my career. I had to say goodbye to volleyball because I wanted to start a new chapter—or so I thought. ”
Plenty has changed in the past two years. The now 28-year-old added a new surname after marrying fellow volleyball player Scott Kevorken, in May 2021. After a season of coaching club volleyball in California, McCage Kevorken landed a job as director of volleyball operations at Pepperdine University. And she adopted an adorable rescue rottweiler mix named Franklin.
But professionally, perhaps the biggest development is that she’s back playing pro volleyball. The reason: for the first time since United States Professional Volleyball folded, in 2003, the United States once again has a pro league. Instead of heading back to Germany, she and Franklin have touched down in Dallas for the second season of Athletes Unlimited, which begins tonight in Fair Park.
The two-year-old organization operates leagues in four sports with the aim of putting more power in the hands of female athletes. There are no organizations, general managers, or owners. Instead, players are drafted school yard-style onto one of four teams each week. In addition to making at least $10,000 for the season (and more with bonuses), athletes are rewarded in points for performance.
After each round of matches, points are totaled, and the four top players become captains for the next week and, in turn, draft players to create that week’s four new teams. The process continues for five weeks, until the league’s finale on April 16.
Last season, McCage Kevorken played in all 15 matches, ranking fifth in the league in blocks and ninth in kills. She finished 2021 Athletes Unlimited ranked No. 22.
“It’s strange to have to change teams every week,” she says. “But the highest percentage of points are for team wins. At the end of the day, you want to perform well individually, but you also want to be a good teammate to help your team win.”
The league provides athletes like McCage Kevorken opportunity to continue playing the game they love without having to put their lives on hold to move overseas, get to know new teammates and foreign cities, and sometimes learn another language. That’s especially important for the athletes who have also become parents.
“It’s not always a great experience playing overseas,” McCage Kevorken says. “The college game here and the NCAA is so big, and you are treated almost like a professional athlete. Then to go overseas—facilities, coaching, training—it can be a stark difference.”
“We have such great volleyball talent here in the United States,” she says. “It’s huge to have a league to keep talent here at home.”
The Dallas Sports Commission’s executive director, Monica Paul, who herself served as technical director for the U.S. Women’s National Team and was instrumental in recruiting the Athletes Unlimited to Dallas, says the league plays a vital role in inspiring the next generation of pro female athletes.
“It shines a light on the sport for youth volleyball players,” she says. “Athletes Unlimited is a great opportunity for kids to be able to take in professional volleyball live. There’s a lot of kids who wouldn’t have the opportunity to see professional volleyball up close.”
And they’ll be seeing McCage Kevorken, who is back playing her sport in the state where she was born and raised. Her college friends can easily make the three-hour drive north on I-35 from Austin to see her play again. “To have my family and friends in the stands—they haven’t seen me play volleyball since I was in college, which feels like forever ago—is really, really special,” she says.
That’s inspired a new feeling after all her years of volleyball: fulfillment. “It feels very much like I’ve finally made it,” she says. “I’m a professional athlete now.” She hopes the women who will follow in her footsteps won’t have to wait as long to feel that way.
Tickets for Athletes Unlimited can be purchased here. The league’s broadcast schedule can be found here.
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