Willa

Willa’s arc is shaped by two departures from the court: her retirement after Colleen Sherman’s disappearance, and her later decision to return when their shared legacy—and the United States’ Olympic beach-volleyball representation—was at stake. The comeback does not restore her former life or earn her an Olympic berth. Instead, it brings her back into competition long enough to discover that teaching the game may be the next form her athletic identity takes.

Identity and Background

Willa began in indoor volleyball, playing on a seven-person team and winning an Olympic gold medal before switching to beach volleyball. Colleen, already a veteran of the beach circuit, taught her the discipline’s demands. They had played together for ten years and became close beyond the court: after their parents died in a plane crash into the Adriatic Sea while traveling to an event in Croatia, the two young women were orphans without siblings and became each other’s only family. Willa’s bond with Colleen was therefore both athletic partnership and kinship.

When Colleen disappeared and was presumed dead, Willa’s grief made the prospect of playing again seem impossible. She could not imagine another partner, and the person she had always turned to when life became unbearable was gone. She later acknowledged that Colleen’s body had never been found, leaving her without closure. The loss had nearly broken her, and the guilt that accompanied thoughts of a comeback continued to affect her physically and emotionally.

Retirement and Return to Competition

After hanging up her bikini, Willa vowed not to look back. She took an unpaid assistant-coaching position at a high school, where she found satisfaction in teaching young players who absorbed her advice eagerly. Coaching offered a way to stay close to a game central to her life without returning to competition. She considered applying for other positions, including head-coaching jobs, and remained attached to both indoor and beach volleyball rather than treating one as a replacement for the other.

That retirement changed when a group of executives, sponsors, and donors responsible for overseeing beach volleyball in the United States arrived at her home. They asked her to compete at the upcoming tournament in Serenidad, the final opportunity for a U.S. team to earn an Olympic place. The country had dominated international beach volleyball in recent years, but without a qualifying team it risked being absent from the Games. After soul-searching and conversations with Victor Bello, Willa agreed to return. She understood the decision as a responsibility to the legacy she and Colleen had built, not simply a bid to resume her own career.

Her partner was Tabby, a late addition after Denise Salazar broke two bones in her leg. Willa had reviewed videos of potential partners with Victor Bello, looking for a match to her style, and Tabby was the best available option. The pairing faced a steep adjustment: they had only six days to develop as a team before competing against the world’s best. Willa had watched Tabby’s matches but had never played against her or Denise, so an informal beach practice gave her a first-hand chance to assess Tabby and begin building their partnership.

The Olympic Stakes

The qualification system made clear that winning a place for the country and earning selection as one of its Olympic players were separate outcomes. Of the twenty-four places, the host country qualified automatically; the other places were allocated through sanctioned events over roughly eighteen months, including the World Championships, rankings, and five final tournaments. Since no American team had qualified, the Serenidad event was the last chance for the United States. Even if Willa and Tabby succeeded, the secured place would not guarantee that they themselves would be chosen for the Games.

At Latu Stadium, Oskar Latu opened the three-day event for sixteen teams and explained its format. The first round was single elimination; later rounds divided teams between a main bracket and an elimination bracket, whose winners would meet for the title. Five matches separated Willa and Tabby from the Olympic place. Because they were unranked, they began on a smaller court rather than in the main arena, where the finals would be played. These rules placed national representation, team performance, and individual selection on distinct tracks: Willa had returned to help the United States qualify, but the system did not promise that qualification would carry her to the Olympics.

The tournament did not give Willa the on-court qualification she had returned to pursue. The international governing body’s executive board later convened an emergency meeting and awarded the final Olympic place to the United States. Willa believed she and Tabby probably would have won had their match been contested, but she did not treat the manner of the award as a personal disappointment: securing a U.S. team had been the goal. A separate qualification process would choose the pair to represent the country, and Willa knew it would not be her.

Relationships and Aftermath

The return to competition was inseparable from Willa’s relationship with Colleen, but Colleen’s rescue transformed what that relationship required of her. When Willa asked whether Colleen would play again, her concern was that Colleen should do so only if she wanted to; she recognized that Colleen had been the best in the world without claiming her career for her. Colleen, meanwhile, was not ready to return immediately. She needed time to adjust to life again and considered finishing a book she had worked on while forcibly absent. Their reunion did not erase the years of separation or dictate an immediate return to the sport.

Willa’s other relationships also endured through upheaval. After Colt rescued her and Colleen, Willa told him she loved him and said she could not imagine life without him. She was badly bruised, with sore ribs and a deeply discolored midsection, and Colt had also been injured in the risks he took to save her. The relief of being with him and finding Colleen alive existed alongside grief: Tabby and Drew were dead, Corey had been exposed as a serial killer, and Willa had not secured an Olympic place for herself. Her response holds these facts together rather than allowing rescue or romance to cancel the losses.

When Colt asked her to come home with him, Willa wanted to say yes but stayed because Colleen needed her, at least for a while. Two weeks later, she traveled with Luca and Peyton Durant Addison to surprise Colt at the COBRA Securities complex. In the intervening weeks she and Colt had talked nightly and texted during the day; she had told him about Colleen’s adjustment and the media attention, but not about a possible indoor-coaching job. She had interviewed virtually and then in person at a local high school, where the gym’s scale and the enthusiasm of its athletes strengthened her interest. When Colt asked whether she had accepted the position, she confirmed that she had.

Change and Narrative Significance

Willa’s career does not move in a straight line from athlete to retiree. She leaves competition in grief, discovers the pleasure of teaching, returns under extraordinary national and personal pressure, and then chooses coaching again after the Olympic place is awarded to the United States without selecting her. The return matters even though it does not restore her former status: it gives her a way to honor Colleen and their partnership while confronting the difference between winning a national qualification and being named to the team.

Her final direction also preserves the distinction between caring for others and deciding their futures for them. Willa stays with Colleen when she is needed, while leaving Colleen free to choose whether to play; she accepts a head-coaching job without abandoning the importance volleyball has always held for her. The sport remains present, but its meaning shifts from performance and legacy alone toward instruction, recovery, and a life she can build beyond the beach.