Volleyball Star’s journey from Ukraine to Logan
Just six months removed from a 5-10 overall record in the abbreviated spring season, and the first full season since a 2-28 finish, Utah State women’s volleyball is having a breakout season and currently sits in second place in the Mountain West standings.
While many different players have contributed to this season’s success, not many would rank above senior outside hitter Kristy Frank. With 212 kills, 189 digs and 34 blocks, Frank is one of the catalysts that make this team click.
Frank transferred to Utah State after playing two seasons with Wiley College, located in Marshall, Texas. Prior to Wiley, she grew up playing volleyball in about as unique of a hometown as you can find: Kiev, Ukraine.
Born and raised in Kiev, Frank started playing volleyball after a coach brought in a tryout flyer to a classroom she was sitting in. After that, there was no stopping her.
“You get addicted so fast to volleyball,” Frank said about her tryout experience. “From there, it was just impossible to stop, and it just kept going.”
Although public schools in Ukraine don’t have volleyball teams, Frank was able to build her skills while playing on club teams and in a women’s league. She was only able to play for a school team in eighth grade while she attended the Regional Kiev Boarding School.
After her time playing volleyball in boarding school, Frank attended and graduated high school from school #302 (public schools in Ukraine don’t have names). After graduation, it was on to Harris County, Texas, to further develop her volleyball talent at the NAIA level.
Going straight from Ukraine to Texas, Frank immediately was thrown into the full American cultural experience. Describing the experience as a culture shock would be an understatement.
Frank grew up speaking Ukrainian throughout her childhood and knew very minimal English when she came to the states.
“It was very crazy…it was very different from what I’m used to in Ukraine,” Frank said, laughing. “I didn’t really speak in the first three months I was there because I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t understand much.”
Going from Ukraine to Texas would undoubtedly be the most significant culture change she’d go through, but not the last. Before coming to Utah State, Frank attended Wiley College, categorized as a historically Black college or university.
HBCU universities were established prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Their past and the current goal is the education of Black Americans. Wiley College is both an HBCU and a religious college affiliated with The United Methodist Church.
Frank was quite successful with the Wildcats, becoming an NAIA Third Team All-American and winning Red River Conference Player of the year in 2019.
Her performance earned her an offer from the NCAA Division-I Aggies. It was an opportunity she took.
“I just wanted to shoot for something bigger, go to a bigger school,” Frank said.
As if Ukraine to Texas wasn’t enough of a leap, Frank also made the jump from a United Methodist College to a school where, according to a USU diversity survey in 2019, 66% of its students are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Frank attributed the vast religious differences being the most prominent cultural change she experienced coming from Texas to Utah.
The Frank family still resides in Ukraine. With a flight to Ukraine being a minimum of 12 hours and the price not being any more forgiving, Frank doesn’t get to see them as much as she’d like to.
She typically spends summers in Kiev, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, traveling home has been much more complex over the last 18 months. Frank has only been home to see her family three times during the previous three years. And her parents have few opportunities to come out to see her play.
Frank is over halfway through her senior season, and although she doesn’t have everything figured out, her volleyball dreams are still very much intact. “I’m planning to work for a year after graduation, and then if it’s possible, go play beach volleyball more professionally,” Frank said. “That would be the ideal plan, but you never know how it’s going to be.”
While it’s a great goal to have going forward, she’s still got one thing on her mind the rest of the way.
“Our goal is to win the conference tournament,” Frank says. “Our goal is to keep playing, keep winning and just play as long as we can.”
The rest of the season will not be easy for the Aggies, as they play most of the top teams in the Mountain West, including hosting top-ranked Colorado State in mid-November.
A gauntlet of games remains, but Frank has nothing but confidence in her team in this expectation exceeding year.