Once upon a time, Thomas Jaeschke and Jeff Jendryk were needles in the same haystack.
Both grew up in Wheaton, Jaeschke two years older. Both discovered volleyball in high school — Jaeschke at Wheaton Warrenville South and Jendryk at St. Francis — took to the sport exceptionally well and joined the same, Aurora-based club, called Sports Performance. And as it turned out, both went on to star in college at Loyola, where Jaeschke, now 30, and Jendryk, 28, got to know each other and, if you can believe it, actually won a Division I national championship together.
Such heights they reached. Such shared glory. What an unlikely story.
But that ain’t the half of it, people. Mais non!
Jaeschke and Jendryk — two dudes from Wheaton — both are on the 12-man U.S. Olympic squad, currently ranked third in the world, that soon will head to the Summer Games in Paris.
How about that?
For Jaeschke, a 6-6 outside hitter, it will be a third go-round at the Olympics. He won a bronze medal with the U.S. team in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and also competed in Tokyo in 2021, those Games delayed a year due to the pandemic.
But for Jendryk, a 6-10 middle blocker, it will be a long-awaited debut on the grandest stage in the sport. He was on the national team — which takes 14 players to all other international tournaments — leading up to Tokyo but, in a painful development, was left on the cutting-room floor as the roster was trimmed to 12.
“We had four great middle blockers, and we had no clue which one of us wasn’t going to make it,” Jendryk said. “When I found out it was me, I was so bummed. I’d put in all the hard work, four years grinding every day to get better at my craft. It took me a couple months to let it go, to be OK with it. All I could do now was really focus on making the next [team].”
Waiting to find out about Paris was no less stressful. Receiving the good news was an indescribable joy.
“I’m so pumped,” he said. “For me, it’s been eight years for this moment.”
Both players were all-time greats at Loyola, of course, reaching hard-to-imagine success even if it unfolded under the radar in a decidedly pro-sports-oriented city. The Ramblers actually won back-to-back national titles in 2014 — right at Gentile Arena in Rogers Park — and in 2015, this time at Stanford. Jaeschke starred on both teams and was the 2015 national player of the year. Jendryk watched from the stands in 2014, still in high school, before becoming Loyola’s only four-time All-American and, in 2018, its last first-team All-American.
Jendryk had crazy size and all the tools as a freshman, but Jaeschke was the man — and the man imparted an early lesson one day in practice that would go a long way. A teammate on the other side of the net blasted a ball that Jendryk figured had no chance to be dug out; Jaeschke got that dig, though, and the ball came right to Jendryk and hit him in the back.
“I didn’t turn around quick enough,” Jendryk said. “It was a little lazy. Tom ran up to me and grabbed my shirt: ‘You gotta be ready all the time, ready for this ball!’ To sum that up, I love the guy. He’s a really hard worker, but he expects a lot of his teammates and wants the best for his teammates.”
Jaeschke played travel baseball and basketball as a boy, and golf and basketball as a freshman in high school. That same school year, he decided against baseball in order to give volleyball a whirl.
“I was 5-10 when I started,” Jaeschke said, “but the next year, sophomore year, I was 6-5.”
With a 38-inch vertical, to boot. A kid like that can really throw down a slam dunk, but volleyball quickly became his real jam. Jaeschke has played professionally in Poland, Italy, China, Turkey and Japan, though not without significant injury disruptions, the worst a torn ACL. In all, it has been a delightful odyssey, with a third Olympics a true gift to be able to experience.
“It’s a super-different kind of life,” he said. “When I’m done playing, I’ll be very appreciative of it. Sometimes it’s hard on a day-to-day level. But I speak Italian now. I never thought that would be the person I would grow up to be. As I’ve aged, every match now, wherever I am in the world, I take a second and look around and think, ‘Man, this is cool.’ ”
Jaeschke’s girlfriend, parents, sister and grandfather will all be in Paris. Jendryk’s girlfriend and his whole family will be there, too, including his older sisters, who played college volleyball at Illinois and Dayton.
Jendryk has played as a pro in Germany, Poland and Italy, but it was those sisters who made him try the sport when he was 16. He was a basketball player then, though, truth be told, not much of one.
“Freshman year, I was scoring two, four, six points in a game,” Jendryk said. “I was about 6-4, maybe 150. A better build for volleyball, you could say.”
He was still at Loyola when the basketball team made a Final Four run in 2018 that captivated the city. Some college sports have; others have not.
“I was really pumped up for those guys,” he said, “but I just wish that would happen more with volleyball. I wish there would be more news outlets promoting volleyball, getting to know the players. It’s kind of a bummer, right?”
Jendryk got mistaken for a basketball player often, the kind of thing that’s commonplace in volleyball.
“But I’m proud to be a volleyball player,” he said.
Never prouder than he’ll be in Paris, a long, long way from home.
