Julia Orzol's worlds collide in surprising run-in on Wisconsin volleyball trip

MARIBOR, Slovenia – Julia Orzol couldn’t wait to see her family on the University of Wisconsin volleyball team’s European tour. And she didn’t have to.

The Orzol family reunion came a day sooner than expected along the shore of beautiful Lake Bled in the heart of Slovenia. Call it a happy coincidence.

Orzol’s parents, Anna and Piotr, along with their son Filip, Julia’s boyfriend Tomasz and her best friend from high school, also named Julia, had made the 14-hour drive from their home in Olsztyn, Poland, to Slovenia to meet up when the Badgers' traveling party was set to arrive in Maribor later in the day on Wednesday.

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They arrived early and were touring Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, when they were told about Bled, just a half-hour’s drive away, so they decided to head there to kill some time.

As it turned out, the Badgers had made a last-minute adjustment to their schedule and after flying in from Istanbul, Turkey, early in the morning, it was decided they would head to Bled, a spot they had visited four years earlier. As with the previous trip the Badgers took two boats out to an island in the middle of the lake and jumped in the water.

On the ride back, Orzol noticed a couple familiar looking people standing on the shore. After a double take, she turned to her roommate, team manager Brynn Teeling, sitting next to her and said, “Those are my parents.”

“I didn’t expect to see them and they didn’t expect to see us there,” said Orzol, a junior outside hitter. “It was a coincidence. They were walking around and they see these two boats packed with people wearing the Badgers’ colors. They’re like, 'No way!' That was the moment I saw them. I was in shock.”

Those mutual sightings soon turned into a group hug, followed by a long line of introductions as the players took turns meeting the most important people in Orzol’s Polish world. It was a feeling that not even a language barrier could spoil.

“It’s like seeing my two worlds connect with each other,” Orzol said. “It was an emotional moment. I don’t even remember what I did, there were too many emotions. I’m so glad they came.

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“They cannot speak English. I feel like they are trying to convey how they feel. There were so many emotions. You never saw those people in the same space. I love both of those worlds so much and they never saw each other, nobody. So for the first time seeing those worlds collide, I don’t even know how to explain it. It was a mixture of happiness and excitement and shock. It was intense.”

And the emotional moments just kept coming for Orzol, as the Badgers took gondola rides up the mountain above Maribor for dinner at the same place where she had dined with them four years earlier when she was a newcomer to the Polish National Junior team.

“Everything was the same,” she said. “The food was basically the same. I remember the table where I was sitting next to M.E. Dodge, with Emma Whitehead, Courtney Gorum and Liz Gregorski stopped by and chatted with us. To think that it was four years ago … it feels like it was one year.”

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Then Thursday morning she and the Badgers walked into the volleyball gym at the Dras Center Hotel for a training session with the Slovenian Under-17 team. As she entered she couldn’t help but think back to that day four years ago when she was like one of those Slovenian youngsters playing the Badgers.

"When we high-fived the other team I was like I was feeling the same,” she said. “Seeing those young girls who are doing the same thing I was four years ago, that was insane to experience.”

Team Orzol sat in on the practice and Orzol couldn’t help but think about how long it had been since she had played in front of them. That sense figures to only be stronger when they get to watch her and the Badgers play a match against Nova KBM Branik.

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“They haven’t seen me play in 2½ years so even seeing me practice today was so fun,” she said. “I had butterflies in my stomach. I haven’t felt that in a long time.

“It’s good for them to see me and how I function in this space. They don’t hear me speaking English that much. I know they would love to communicate with everybody. My mother is trying and she wishes so much that she was able to. It’s just that native speakers talk so fast and they’re using the shorter forms, it’s hard.

“I felt like it would be more uncomfortable but everybody is understanding and they’re making the situation as comfortable as possible.”