Maddie Smith Feature
By: Connor Brown, Production Director, FM88 Sports
The No. 20 on Maddie Smith’s Marshall volleyball jersey represents much more than a number.
It is also tattooed behind her ear; a permanent reminder of the family that helped her fall in love with volleyball long before she became an outside hitter for the Thundering Herd.
Smith first wore No. 20 when she joined the Carolina Union Volleyball Club at 14 years old. It was the same number her mother had worn. Eventually, Smith, her mother and her stepfather all got the number tattooed, making it what Smith calls “our number.” It represents her family and the sacrifices they made to help her continue playing the sport.
“I first fell in love with volleyball when I was around 9 or 10,” Smith said. “My mom actually played volleyball in high school and a little bit at a smaller college, so she’s the one who got me into it.”
Smith laughs when she looks back on how her volleyball career began.
“At first, I was really bad, but we stuck with it,” Smith said. “So, Mom is honestly the main reason I’m still playing.”
Years later, sticking with it would take on an entirely different meaning.
Smith’s path to Marshall included a torn ACL, a coaching change at Appalachian State and a decision to leave the only state she had ever called home. What began as a search for another place to play eventually became an opportunity to rediscover the confidence and love for volleyball that the most difficult stretch of her career had tested.
Abbi Hayes first met Smith when she was an eighth grader playing for Carolina Union Volleyball Club. Now the club’s associate director, Hayes remembers the competitive nature Smith brought to the court.
Her first impression has stayed with her.
“There is a kid that loves to compete,” Hayes said via email.
Smith already possessed what Hayes described as an “arm like a cannon,” but her willingness to take risks also stood out. As Smith developed, she became what Hayes called a “gym rat,” spending countless hours working on her serve receive, defense and other parts of her game.
That dedication eventually took Smith to Appalachian State.
For the North Carolina native, staying close to home made sense. Her family lived nearby, and she had never lived outside the state.
Then, during her freshman year, an injury changed the direction of her collegiate career.
Smith tore her ACL.
The injury sidelined her, but the road back presented another challenge.
“Coming off of a big injury, I tore my ACL my freshman year, and that’s really hard to come back from mentally and physically,” Smith said.
While Smith worked through her recovery, Appalachian State also underwent a coaching change. The program she originally committed to began to look different from the one she had envisioned.
“It just didn’t feel like how it felt when I first committed there,” Smith said. “We had a coaching change, you know, I got hurt. It was a pretty big injury.”
As time passed, Smith began to recognize that her future might be somewhere else.
“The more I grew, I just kind of grew apart from that culture and that group of people,” Smith said.
Eventually, she brought the possibility of leaving to her parents.
Smith knew she needed a fresh start.
“I just felt like I needed a new refresh to reignite my love for playing and just to get me more confident,” Smith said.
She ultimately decided to enter the transfer portal.
When Smith’s name appeared, Marshall’s coaching staff saw a 6-foot-1 outside hitter with Sun Belt experience and a background at a respected club program. Her film showed a physical attacker who could contribute at the net and in the back row.
However, Smith was still recovering from her ACL injury.
Marshall head coach Heather Stout saw something worth pursuing.
“Offensively, she had a hammer,” Stout said.
The film gave Stout an idea of Smith’s ability, but their first conversations gave her another reason to bring the outside hitter to Huntington.
“Just her energy,” Stout said. “She’s a bubbly kid. She’s always having a good day. Like, you never know when she’s having a bad day.”
Smith still wore a knee brace, but her determination to return to the court already stood out to Stout.
One conversation helped make Stout’s decision.
“I wanted her in my gym after that conversation,” Stout said.
Coming to Marshall meant Smith finally had to leave North Carolina. She was moving away from her family and everything familiar while continuing to recover from the most significant injury of her career.
Her first day in Huntington gave her an early indication of what awaited her.
“The first day I walked in all my teammates knew my name,” Smith said. “We were asking to go to coffee, to go to dinner.”
Those invitations helped Smith build relationships outside the volleyball gym. She began viewing her teammates as sisters, and Huntington gradually became a place where she belonged.
“It just feels like another home away from home,” Smith said.
Still, her knee remained a reminder of everything she had gone through.
Smith continued wearing the brace for protection and thought she might need it for another year. Stout had a different timeline in mind.
The two eventually had a conversation about when Smith could leave the brace behind.
“I think I’m gonna need a year,” Smith told her.
“Not with me,” Stout said.
Over time, Smith finally took the brace off.
She began jumping with more confidence and trusting her knee again. But Stout noticed another change that went beyond Smith’s physical recovery.
Smith was smiling about volleyball again.
“I feel like my confidence has really grown,” Smith said.
The injury forced Smith to examine how much of her confidence she had connected to volleyball. She knows she can get inside her own head and become hard on herself when things go wrong.
Rebuilding her confidence required her to look beyond the sport.
“I feel like just reminding myself to be confident and leaning into my faith, like using that to help me be confident and know that not all my worth is just in my sport,” Smith said. “It’s in so much more. It’s in God, it’s in my family, it’s in my friends.”
Hayes has watched Smith develop since those early days at Carolina Union. She knows the work Smith put into becoming a better player, but she also recognizes what it took to return after the injury.
“She has faced so much adversity that a lot of athletes wouldn’t bounce back from,” Hayes said. “I think it goes back to that competitive spirit, and I would never count her out.”
The same work ethic Hayes remembers from club volleyball has followed Smith to Huntington.
Stout sees it when Smith requests extra film on a Sunday morning before church. She also sees it after matches, when Smith recognizes what she did well but immediately looks for another part of her game to improve.
“She’s always wanting to add more on her plate,” Stout said.
That mentality has started to influence the rest of the team.
“Everybody’s in here wanting to get extra reps,” Stout said. “Everyone’s wanting to be a Maddie Smith.”
Her teammates see that same commitment on the court. Beatrice Ciccarelli believes Smith’s determination has made her an important part of Marshall’s success, especially as the team works through its conference schedule.
“I think she’s having an incredible season and obviously she had to prove herself because she just came back last year with an ACL injury,” Ciccarelli said. “And I think she really has the fire and she’s really a huge piece in our team.”
Smith’s influence also reaches beyond her performance. Ciccarelli says the accountability Smith brings to the team encourages everyone around her to hold themselves to the same standard.
“She is really accountable with us and that makes us being accountable with her,” Ciccarelli said.
Yet Smith wants her teammates to remember more than what she accomplishes on the volleyball court.
She does not consider herself the loudest leader on the team. Instead, she wants her actions to speak for her, whether that means putting in extra work or supporting a teammate who needs someone.
“I want to be remembered as funny and happy, but, you know, not just an athlete,” Smith said.
Ciccarelli sees that personality away from competition, too. She describes Smith as someone who brings positivity to the group and makes an effort to spend time with the people around her.
“She’s always positive,” Ciccarelli said. “I think she’s very competitive as a person inside and outside the court. Her faith is amazing.”
Smith’s faith also influences the way she approaches her relationships with teammates. Beatrice says Smith makes an effort to be there for others and helps create a stronger connection within the group.
“She just want us to spend time together and like, be there for us,” Ciccarelli said. “And she’s just super funny.”
More than anything, Smith wants to be “a light” for the people around her and someone her teammates can turn to when they have a difficult day.
Hayes still recognizes the qualities that stood out when Smith was an eighth grader.
The arm is still there. So is the competitiveness.
But after everything that happened between North Carolina and Huntington, another quality stands out.
“She has so much joy when she plays,” Hayes said.
For Smith, that joy did not come easily.
She worked through an ACL tear, rebuilt confidence in her knee and in herself, and recognized when the program she originally chose no longer provided the environment she needed. Then she left home and trusted that another program could give her the opportunity to rediscover what she loved about volleyball.
Now, the smile is back. So is the confidence. And so is No. 20.
Someday, Smith will put on a volleyball jersey for the final time. When that happens, the No. 20 across her Marshall uniform will come off with it.
The one behind her ear, however, will remain.
It will represent the mother who introduced her to volleyball, the family that sacrificed for her to play and the sport Smith nearly lost some of her love for before finding it again.
The number has followed Smith through different teams, an ACL tear, a transfer and a new beginning.
Now, in Huntington, No. 20 represents something else, too.
A second chance.