She’s Got Balls: Former Houston, Pitt player Kullerkann advocates for female athletes through art

Used. Beaten down. Unappreciated. Kind of like an old volleyball stuffed into the dark, forgotten recesses of a seldom-opened closet.

That’s how Kadi Kullerkann was feeling about her post-college playing experience. A disposable cog. No one to look after her well-being. No one to provide support.

That’s how she still feels about the plight of many female athletes. Give what’s demanded until there’s nothing left to give. Receive little in return.

Kullerkann, a 6-foot-4 product of Estonia, was a two-time AVCA honorable-mention All-American, first at Houston and then at Pittsburgh, in 2015. But she was on the verge of giving up volleyball. The joy was gone. The stress was great. And the rewards seemed few.

In the past year-and-a-half, Kullerkann and her game have been reborn. Kullerkann, now 29, is playing a regular role with the Estonian national team, and she returned to the professional ranks after a three-year hiatus, starring for A.O. Markopoulo in Greece.

And now, she is expressing the emotions of her roller-coaster experience in the best way she knows: Through her art. Kullerkann is in the middle of a project she named “She’s Got Balls,” a representation of her struggles — and triumphs — as a female athlete and an ode to female athletes everywhere who have felt undervalued.

Kullerkann hopes to finish the project by the end of the year. She is able to work on smaller pieces during her down time in Greece. When she goes home to Estonia, she works on the larger pieces.

Her ultimate goal is to have a show for the work, but she wants to take it a step further. She doesn’t simply want it to be an art show. She wants to start a dialogue about the treatment of female athletes.

She is considering adding other elements to the display, such as clippings from contracts — hers and those of friends who have played pro sports.

For example, one of her former teammates had a clause in her contract that said she would be docked a percentage of her pay if she gained more than 5 kilos (about 11 pounds) during the season. Another clause, Kullerkann said, that is pretty standard in the contracts of many female athletes she knows relates to pregnancy.

Basically, if the player becomes pregnant, the club no longer will pay her salary.

“Against human rights in Europe,” Kullerkann said. “Literally, it’s in European law. Can you imagine another workplace where you get fired when they hear you’re pregnant?”

And then there’s this:

“If the club says we’re going to have a calendar shoot, and it’s going to be a nude calendar shoot for the team, you have to be a part of that,” she said. “Even if it goes against your beliefs or what you want to do.

“Sometimes they are classy, and sometimes it’s, ‘What the heck is this?’ But the fact that we as players don’t have a choice whether we want to take part or not, that’s where the problem is.

“We already put our bodies on the line, our mental health on the line every single day.… That already is us giving all of us, and then they ask for more and more and more. That’s not how they would treat any guy who is playing or allow that. No men would sign those contracts.”

And the men, she said, are paid far more and get far more attention from the media. That is a universal issue between the two sides, and Kullerkann also wants to shine a light on how much untapped potential and money there is in women’s sports coverage.

She doesn’t want to, in a manner of speaking, rob Peter to pay Paula. In her mind, it’s a simple matter of the spotlight being large enough for both.

“I’m not asking tomorrow to get paid as much as the men,” she said, “because I understand there’s sponsorships … and the viewership is different. But you can’t get sponsorships for women’s sports because it’s not covered.… It all starts from covering it and talking about it.

“I’m not asking you to take from the men and give to us. I think we can expand all sports. Just because you ask for better treatment for one group doesn’t mean you are asking for worse for the other group.”

Those are the kinds of discussions she hopes to start by showing her art.

And, eventually, she hopes “She’s Got Balls” can be sold. That would be a nice segue into her post-volleyball career: She wants to be an artist. Naturally.

Until then, she hopes the piece not only serves as a means of catharsis — for her and those who can relate to her experience — but also as a linchpin for better treatment for female athletes.

“If we don’t ask for more, we’re never going to get more,” she said. “If they think this treatment is OK, it’s forever going to be OK. But it’s not.”

The Athlete and the Artist

To understand the depths to which Kullerkann plunged, it is necessary to understand the heights to which she ascended.

In the Kullerkann house in Keila, Estonia, it seemed clear how each sister was gifted. Liis, older by about a year and a half, was the athlete. She played at Ohio. Kadi was the artist.

“Let’s be clear,” Kadi said. “My sister can draw, too. It’s not like she couldn’t make a stick figure, and I’m Picasso. I guess I enjoyed doing art more, and maybe I showed it out more because I was more interested in taking art classes than I was doing athletics.”

Liis excelled at track and field and volleyball as a girl. Kadi participated in sports, too, but nothing competitive. She played mostly to fulfill her parents’ request that she stay active.

By the time she became a teenager, Kullerkann started thinking about playing volleyball. Some of her classmates were doing it, and she hadn’t really taken to track and field the way her sister had.

She played volleyball but mostly as a social activity to be with friends, never taking it too seriously.

She didn’t get much encouragement, either. Her first coach, she said, was a physical- education teacher who told her she never would be a volleyball player and that she should change sports.

Instead, she changed clubs. This time, the coach was happy to have a tall girl on his roster. She still didn’t see herself as an athlete, but that was about to change.

After a year, Kadi, and Liis, were invited to the Audentes School, Estonia’s only sports school. So they moved away from Keila the same year, and Kadi’s future was forever altered.

“So we kind of had a similar path from there on,” Kadi said, “and being in that environment, I started to try toward being an athlete more.”

Her path took another turn when, as a freshman at Audentes, one of the seniors on the team got an opportunity to play college volleyball in America.

“At that point, it was kind of a dream,” Kadi said. “I was so fresh into volleyball. I had played a year, year and a half. I didn’t have a concrete plan, but it was always in the back of my mind.”

The plan crystallized further when Leonid Yelin, the current Syracuse coach who was Louisville’s coach at the time, was scouting Audentes. Although he didn’t see anyone who fit his program, he gave Liis’ information to then-Ohio U coach Ryan Theis (now the coach at Marquette).

Liis was off to Ohio U the next year. Kadi, now a more polished 6-foot-4 right side, followed her to the U.S, landing at Houston.

She had been looking at schools where she could major in art, specifically graphic design. Kullerkann sent some 50 emails to coaches at American universities with graphic design programs but found many of the responses discouraging. The schools were fine with her volleyball resume but advised her against playing because of the time constraints that came with the work for that major.

Houston, meanwhile, went another route, offering her a major in digital media. She could still use her creative skills but then make them come to life using technology.

Molly Alvey was Houston’s coach at the time, and she welcomed Kullerkann – still fairly raw after playing volleyball seriously for only five years – into the program.

Kullerkann played here and there as a freshman, gaining experience. But after her first season, Alvey left for her current post at Cincinnati.

Uneasy about the coaching change but happy with her major, Kullerkann decided to stay at Houston. Kaddie Platt took over the following year, and although the Cougars had their ups and downs, Kullerkann was beginning to blossom.

As a senior, Kullerkann was named first-team American Athletic Conference and AVCA honorable-mention All-American. She also was named the AAC’s Female Scholar Athlete of the Year for 2014-15.

“When Kadi was at Houston, she had all the qualities of a great player,” said Platt, now a high-school coach in the Houston area. “She loved to learn and was a student of the game.… She was determined and had God-given talent.

“She grew into our team leader and could handle all the pressure of carrying the team in our success.”

By this time, Kullerkann, the once-reluctant volleyball player, had her mind set on playing professionally. First, she wanted to get her master’s degree and use her final season of athletics eligibility to continue her development as a player. For that, she turned to Pittsburgh — lured there partially because Liis was finishing her master’s degree and using up her volleyball eligibility at Duquesne, just three miles from Pitt’s campus.

So for a few months — and the first time in four years — the sisters could be together.

The volleyball experience was pretty good, too. Although Kadi played only one season for the Panthers, she helped coach Dan Fisher’s team take another step toward its current success.

“It’s easy for me to speak highly of Kadi,” Fisher said. “She had a huge impact on the trajectory of our program. She came here for only one season, but she left her mark. She was an impact player, a leader and one of the best students I have ever coached. It was truly like coaching a professional.”

Her one season at Pittsburgh resulted in first-team All-ACC recognition and another AVCA honorable-mention All-American honor.

“To this day, I would say Pitt’s coaching staff is my favorite staff I’ve had anywhere,” Kullerkann said. “I wish I had four years with Fish because that would be amazing what he could have done with me. But things happen for a reason, and I think I got my lessons that I needed to get throughout this process.”

Kullerkann was now ready to play professionally and ready to make her mark with the Estonian national team.

“Everything went south”

Kullerkann’s first experience with her national team came when she attended camp in 2012. No huge expectations. Just glad for the opportunity.

That fall, early in her sophomore season at Houston, she had ACL surgery on her left knee and was out of action until summer 2013.

Knee injuries would dog Kullerkann for several years after.

While finishing her master’s degree in marketing at Pitt, she required a second ACL surgery, which kept her out of action all of 2016. Once she recovered, she landed a pro contract with Eurosped in the Netherlands. Then it was on to Yesil Bayramic in Turkey for the 2017-18 season. Her Turkish club’s season ended early, so she finished 2018 with Petro Gazz Angels in the Philippines.

That’s when the trouble began.

In July 2018, while playing in the Philippines, she had to have a minor “clean out” surgery on her left knee. Because of insufficient rehab, she had to have the same surgery again in February 2019.

In between, she rejoined the Estonian team for European qualifying. But it was only one month into her recovery that required a minimum of three months, so she only traveled with the team.

By then, she decided to stop playing professionally and instead play with an Estonian club — Estonia doesn’t have any pro teams for women — and remain available for the national team.

“That’s when everything went south, around the Philippines time,” she said. “The Philippines was tough, but I still remember it as a positive experience. It was more so with the national team.”

Kullerkann said she had little to no support from the national team in her recovery, which continued after European qualifying. She had to rely on the memory of how she rehabbed from ACL injuries in college and oversee her own recovery.

No income. No insurance. No doctors at her disposal through the national team.

She was living with her parents and took some part-time jobs to afford to eat.

By January 2019, she had healed herself and played with Estonia when it made history: qualifying for the European championships for the first time.

Her joy, however, was short-lived. The next month, she needed a fourth surgery on her left knee. Back to the drawing board, rehabbing on her own again.

When the national team reconvened in May 2019, Kullerkann thought she was ready to return to action. But tests showed that her left leg was 25 percent weaker than her right leg, which meant a high risk of another injury. She wouldn’t be cleared to play unless the difference in leg strength was no more than 10 percent.

More rehab on her own.

Paring to the required 10 percent, the doctors said, would take eight months. Although she wasn’t able to do any jumping, she was able to do some light-impact drills and keep touches on the volleyball.

In July – just two months after she began rehab – Kullerkann had more tests on her knees, and had worked the difference in strength to zero.

“Still one of my proudest moments,” she said.

That didn’t seem to impress the Estonian coaches. When the staff chose the final squad for the European championships – which were starting August 23, four days after her 27th birthday – Kullerkann was not on it.

She would not be part of Estonian women’s volleyball history.

“At that point, how I was playing, I deserved a spot,” she said. “Not being narcissistic … but I had worked my ass off, and I had worked myself into a spot that deserved to be on the team. Maybe not a starter, but a spot on the team. And being the tallest player in Estonia, you’re going against the strongest teams in Europe, maybe even have me as a blocking sub.”

But Kullerkann had a sense the coaching staff would not select her. In fact, she already had purchased tickets to go to Budapest in late August and watch from the stands as her sister competed.

The disappointment of being passed over for the national team was the final blow. It was the culmination of three years of scars, and not the kind that came from all the surgeries: constantly being told she wasn’t emotionally strong enough to play for the national team, being told she was overweight and too slow, feeling like she wasn’t given a fair chance.

She said she often cried herself to sleep during camp.

“I felt I got attacked on the things that were the complete opposite of who I really was,” she said. “And that goes deep for people if there’s something you work on mindfully for years and then that’s the one thing that’s been shot down.”

Her sister noticed.

“Seeing Kadi’s negative experience with the national team was always difficult because the national team has always been the greatest source of joy for me in my volleyball career,” Liis Kullerkann said. “She was our biggest fan in the stands (for Euros), but for me, it never felt quite right to not have her down there on the court with me.

“I also have seen first-hand what she’s had to go through with her knee injuries and how hard she worked to come back from those. And I think our national-team coach kind of wrote her off just because of her past injuries without actually working with her or paying attention to what she was really bringing to the table.

“I always knew she was disappointed, but I think most other people in the team had no idea she was so good at putting on a good face and restarting herself mentally every single day.”

Kadi added: “Sometimes I think I’m overreacting.… But if there’s someone next to you and realizes how unfair situations are, then you’re like, ‘I’m not making this stuff up.’ ”

Kullerkann began to question her worth as a player.

She’s Got Balls

Kullerkann’s disillusionment with her national team was exacerbated by her college experience. To wit: Her time at Houston and at Pitt were so good, the national team was a monumental step down.

“The last time I (had) enjoyed volleyball was at Pitt,” she said. “The system in college athletics, it’s strenuous, it’s hard, but you have so many resources. You have physios. You’re with your team all the time. You have five coaches who care about you.

“And maybe I’m a little biased because they saw potential in me and were nice to me, and not everybody is as lucky in college sports. I felt cared for. I felt I had a support system behind me.”

She said she was content with the national team during her college years, but after college, she felt like she never got a chance. Coaches couldn’t see past the unrefined game she had before going to America, she said, to recognize the polished player she had become.

Three years of that treatment took their toll, and Kullerkann was at her breaking point. A “dark hole” she called it. And, she insisted, she wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

“A lot of girls broke down because of the way that particular coaching staff was valuing … not valuing, devaluing players really,” she said. “I felt like I was empty. I was deflated.

“And it kind of symbolically goes into what I am doing as an art project. I had nothing left in my tank. Mentally, physically, I was just broken down.”

Although Kullerkann continued playing club volleyball in Estonia, she started to believe the end was near.

But as 2020 dawned, the Estonian national team got a new coaching staff. Coaches from Italy, who came in with no preconceived notions.

That summer, Kullerkann started to enjoy the game again. And if the coaching staff needed any assurances that she could be vital to the team, she showed it during club season. Playing for TalTech Volleyball, she helped the team to all three major titles in the same season: the 2020 Estonian Cup, the 2020-21 Estonian Championship, and the 2020-21 Baltic Championship. It was the first time the club won all three major titles in the same season, and Kullerkann was named MVP of the Baltic Championship.

During the Baltic semifinals, she had an epiphany.

“I was in a hotel room laying down thinking, ‘We’re doing good. I am doing good. I kind of want to play. It makes sense,’ ” she said. “But all those emotions and that history (with the national team) kept coming up. But I was at the point where I was ready to release it.”

And “She’s Got Balls” was born.

She took a volleyball, deflated it and painted it gold to resemble a trophy. It looks shiny and valuable, but it’s drained and dry. That was the first image that came to her head.

“That was coming from a deeper place inside me,” she said. “The ball symbolizes how it is to be a female athlete in professional sports for a lot of players. Not everyone. Some get along better. But for a huge, huge percentage, that’s how it ends up. You give your all, and you end up being airless.”

For the final project, she decided on pen-and-paper sketches. Using a technique called “stippling,” which involves creating a picture using thousands of tiny points, she began her work.

When finished, the project will consist of three larger drawings (roughly 3 feet by 2 feet) depicting a deflated volleyball, basketball and soccer ball. Those will be supplemented by six smaller drawings.

The larger drawings, she said, require about 100 hours to complete. Kullerkann works on a piece for only two hours at a time because the tedious work is a strain on her arm and her eyes.

But the difficulty is part of the art.

“It’s laborious … but it kind of related to that sports experience of getting me every single rep, me training, me doing weight training, volleyball practice, whatever. All those little points add up to the big picture of who I am as an athlete.

“So I’m kind of torturing myself with doing those images, which is a funny thing. I could have chosen so many easier ways, and it would still look amazing. But, no. I’m going to do this tedious work because that’s what an athlete is.”

As for the title, Kullerkann said it is a tribute to what many female athletes go through to compete. Though female athletes aren’t always given credit for being tough, Kullerkann said they persevere.

In true artist fashion, she said the meaning of the pieces will be left to the interpretation of the viewer.

“I don’t want to say, ‘This is what it means,’ ” she said. “It’s just what came out of me.… As any other art piece, I think there’s so many ways to decipher the message, if there is a message. Maybe it’s just a beautiful picture for someone.

“But just because I started it from one reasoning, as I do it, the meaning changes based on where I stand. And I’m in a positive mental space now. I really appreciate what I do, so it goes deeper than one experience.

“I’m not defined by only the season or only my games or only whatever goes. Through this whole process, I see myself as a person with different skills, different interests. Nothing is final. It’s kind of like a little saving grace for me for my own sanity.”

Positive change

Last summer, Kullerkann was back in the Estonian national team’s camp. This time, she made the rosters for the European qualifiers and the European Silver League and got increased playing time.

It turns out, the new coaches devised a system in which they could use two opposite hitters.

“I just want to get a chance to prove myself,” Kullerkann said, “and if I don’t prove myself, that’s my fault. It has been a very positive change.”

She also is having a fine season with A.O. Markopoulo. The club has had some struggles, sitting in the bottom half of the A1 Ethniki standings, but Kullerkann has distinguished herself. Through the first half of the season, she was hitting .420 and was named to the league’s “team of the week” three times.

“I can definitely see that she’s more at peace and so happy just to be playing again,” Liis Kullerkann said. “I think at one point, she lost a lot of confidence because of her national- team experience. But as soon as we got our current coaching staff that worked with her to find solutions rather than writing her off immediately, she started to blossom and slowly get back to the strong, confident player that she was in college.

“It has been incredible to see her go from thinking she would never play at a high level again to absolutely killing it in Greece in her ‘comeback’ season.”

When she’s not playing or working on “She’s Got Balls,” Kullerkann likes to walk around Athens. She said the sight of the Parthenon makes her smile no matter how often she sees it.

That feeling of joy has as much to do with her frame of mind as it does with being in the presence of one of the world’s great monuments. She is at peace again — so much so that she is intent on playing professionally for a few more years.

The experiences that once had her feeling used and unappreciated won’t go away. She knows how cruel sports can be. But she also appreciates how rewarding they can be.

“It’s so cool that I can live here and do this, and you never know where sports can take you,” she said. “And that is the beautiful part, and that’s why I appreciate it.”

And she hopes, through “She’s Got Balls,” to show all the ecstasy and the agony of sports — and be a catalyst for change.

“She is,” Pitt’s Fisher said, “a modern-day warrior poet.”

Follow Kadi Kullerkann on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/proarthlete/

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