The old adage that practice makes perfect may be a bit misleading at times. For those youngsters who hope to reach their goal of making a high school roster, or achieving feats greater than that, practice is where their dream might become a reality.

Kansas University volleyball player Emily Brown got a late start playing the sport she excels at. Brown grew up in Baldwin City and didn’t start playing organized volleyball until she was in seventh-grade. She was, however, very familiar with the sport, as her mother, Jill, played volleyball at KU and was Emily’s high school coach. But for years Brown thought about following a different athletic path.

“My passion until my junior year in high school was basketball,” Brown said. “I loved it. I played softball and track and field, but towards the end of my high school career it just kind of clicked that volleyball was my best option.”

It seems Brown made the right choice. The 6-foot-2-inch KU junior has started for the KU volleyball team for the past three seasons. But Brown said that her own success on the court could not have been possible without her mother expecting more from her during practice.

“Her favorite part was practice,” Brown said. “She could care less if we ever played a game. We had some pretty intense practices, some worse than others. But there was never much standing around. We went in there for two hours and got a lot done.”

Brown said that having been through three-plus years of practice at the college level, the practices were pretty similar, except in one area.

“The conditioning part here is totally different,” Brown said. “In high school it was all about drills, drills, drills. Here we do a lot of lifting and running and that kind of incorporates, so it was totally different coming to this level.”

Brown said that despite playing at a smaller school, she had one characteristic that stood out to recruiters: her versatility. Brown said having the ability to play other positions is something volleyball players should work at if they want to play college ball.

“Don’t get stuck in one position. Jump into everything,” Brown said. “All you can do is try. And just keep your options open.”

Brown’s teammate, Jana Correa, a senior, began playing volleyball when she was 11 years old in Macapa, Brazil. Correa started out as a swimmer, but her arms and shoulders were getting too big, so her mother told her to try volleyball.

Correa spent the next six months practicing hitting, serving and passing by herself on a wall.

“I feel that all the skills I learned was because I played on a wall,” Correa said.

Playing volleyball in Brazil was different than in America, Correa said, because the United States has more of a team atmosphere.

“In Brazil we practice more skills and basic stuff first,” Correa said. “And here you practice more with people. In Brazil you have to practice by yourself first and then get in with the team.”

Correa also said the practice habits of the two countries were quite different.

“Here you focus more on details like how to pass,” Correa said. “And in Brazil it’s more like hustle stuff. You constantly play and are using your skills. You’re going to learn from experience.”

Along with adjusting to a new country and style of play, Correa has also battled injuries throughout her four-year Jayhawk career. Correa suffered season-ending knee injuries in both her freshman and junior seasons. She said dealing with numerous injuries could be heartbreaking, but she got through them with help from her faith.

“Injuries are always going to happen,” she said. “You got to be tough. You have to have mental toughness to come back from a serious injury. You can’t get down. You just have to keep your faith and try to come back.”

And getting back on the court with her teammates was a motivating factor in recovery.

“I feel like in volleyball you need your friends with you,” Correa said. “To play volleyball you have to trust your other players. You have to give a lot of effort for somebody. You can’t be selfish.”

With her volleyball career at KU finished, Correa said that those who want to someday play at the college level should remember two things.

“Never give up and always practice,” Correa said. “It doesn’t matter how many times you practice, you’ve got to practice. There’s no way you can get better if you don’t practice.”

Kansas University baseball player Robby Price has played baseball since he was five years old. But in those days, Price played without a glove or an aluminum bat.

“I just remember always playing whiffle ball,” the freshman third baseman said. “Just keeping it fun and enjoying it with my friends and my brothers growing up. That was probably the best teaching tool growing up.”

Times have certainly changed for Price. Gone are the carefree days as a young boy growing up in California. His days now consist of practicing three or four hours a day, plus one-hour weightlifting sessions and class time. And that’s just on days he’s not playing a baseball game.

Price said during a typical workout day, the team begins with some light stretching and throwing before separating into their positions where they do drills and work on team defense like bunt coverages and first-and-third relays. After that, they work on their hitting at the indoor hitting facility before taking the field for live action at the plate and on the field.

Price said he does not put a number on how many ground balls he has to field each day, but rather he keeps working until he knows he’s ready to play.

“It’s more of a comfort thing,” Price said. “At this level it’s basically on your own. You’re going to put in what you get out of it.”

Price said the biggest difference between high school baseball and college was the competition around him.

“Everyday you’re out there and the guy behind you is just as good or better,” he said. “So they’re pushing you, people are pushing each other. It’s competition. It’s risen another level and you have to come out and be ready to go.”

Price said he often thinks back to the days when he was growing up in California and didn’t have to worry about all the demands that are placed on athletes. But Price said he wouldn’t be doing what he is if he didn’t have such fun playing the game growing up.

“Keeping it fun’s the most important thing growing up, and it still is now,” Price said. “If you’re not enjoying it there’s no reason to be out here working hard for five hours.”

Kansas University point guard Russell Robinson grew up in New York, N.Y. Snow or cold weather couldn’t stop him from working toward reaching his goal of playing college basketball.

“I always wanted to be a basketball player,” Robinson said. “I couldn’t go a day without playing someway, somehow. I never took a day off.”

One thing Robinson, a junior who is preparing for his senior season at KU, became educated on at an early age was fundamentals like passing and dribbling.

“Growing up it was learning the basics of basketball and it got more complex as you progressed and got better,” Robinson said.

He said that one of the differences from high school to college basketball at Kansas is the year-round conditioning, noting that coach Bill Self has made his players run around parts of campus “sometimes as punishment” and “sometimes to keep us in shape.”

Another difference, Robinson said, was the attention to detail during practice the college game demands.

“The focus is more on executing and little things,” he said. “In high school you could make little mistakes and get away with it.”

Robinson said that even though he has to practice two or three hours a day, and sometimes twice a day, his practice routine hasn’t changed much from when he was a youngster.

“I always like to get up a few shoots to get a feel, at least one shot before I start practicing,” Robinson said. “The main thing I always used to do in high school was push myself, set goals in practice and try to achieve them. And before you know it, you got better.”

Robinson said playing against high-caliber talent at Rice High School helped prepare him for the next step, but there is one area of the game that he wasn’t prepared for.

“In college everything’s magnified with TV games and stuff like that,” he said. “College, it’s more tough to handle.”

Robinson has played against some of the top players in the country, and he has performed quite well against them. He credits the long hours he spent in the gym; practicing is what made him the player he is today.

“A player is made in the offseason,” he said. “They show off their work in the season, but depending on how they prepare, you can just tell who’s working hard in the offseason and who’s not. And it shows when it gets late, like NCAA situations.”

Only a month after KU’s season-ending loss to UCLA in the Elite Eight, Robinson was back at work last Thursday practicing with other members of the KU basketball team as they prepare for next season. Robinson said those workouts were not as intense, but they still present an opportunity to get better.

And before he walked onto the Allen Fieldhouse court to join his teammates, Robinson left some words of wisdom for everyone striving to reach dreams both on and off the court.

“The main thing would be to stay motivated and work hard at it in whatever you try to accomplish,” he said. “Not everybody’s a basketball player. Some people are going to take it serious, and if you are going to take it serious, you might as well give it your all.”